http://www.mekon.com/ en 2013-06-11T13:31:22+00:00 2013-06-11T13:31:22+00:00 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Expression Engine 60 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/offshoring-technical-documentation-risks-and-benefits/news/ Engaging a third party supplier from outside the business to generate technical documentation is not a new idea. Many businesses find it beneficial to employ contract labour in order to enjoy flexibility of headcount and reduced staffing costs. Offshoring is a form of outsourcing that seeks to take those economic savings and independence of overheads to a new level. Companies outsource certain functions to other parts of the globe to benefit from reduced costs, free regulation, tax reasons and more. We are all used to connecting with call centres and IT support centres all over the world. Outsourced software development is big business, particularly in India. It seems the next logical step then, that businesses may choose to offshore their technical communications functions. English is, after all the global language and the whole world is open for business. However, before making the decision to offshore technical writing functions, it is important to carefully weigh up the advantages and disadvantages. This article describes some of the factors influencing a that decision and explains why the risks may outweigh the benefits long term. Advantages: Any form of outsourcing - whether through a local contractor, an agency or an offshore arrangement, enables the business to be more responsive to peaks and troughs in workload. The ability to take on extra staff at busy times and reduce headcount when the workload is lower can be particularly valuable for startups and small businesses, when there may not be enough budget or enough work to make it worth hiring a full time author. Offshoring documentation services can reduce the cost to the company in salary, but also in company benefits such as paid holiday, national insurance, sickness benefit and pension contribution. India in particular has a large pool of highly-qualified, English-speaking university graduates working for considerably lower wages than in Western Europe and the United States. Disadvantages Domain knowledge and collaboration Offshoring by nature requires that technical authors are further removed from the organisation and intimate domain knowledge. When authors have been with a company for a long time, they acquire knowledge that may be hard to replicate or pass on – knowledge of the technology and products, but also knowledge of who to speak to within the organisation, and knowledge of the company style guide, culture and general issues. Understanding of company-specific tools such as document management and defect tracking systems can be costly to develop or lose, especially in cases where customisation or custom development has been done. In a start-up situation, offshoring may make sense because you can build up that relationship, but before disbanding an existing team, consider how long it could take to rebuild that domain knowledge and how much of a hit it will be to collaborate with remote externals. At a high level, one could say that methodologies like Agile which encourage high-touch, integrated teamwork do not lend themselves to an offshoring arrangement. Time to market New writers always take time to become productive, and offshore teams are no exception: if you are engaging offshore labour to meet a tight deadline, remember that they may still need time to negotiate a learning curve. The learning curve of those disconnected from the core team could well be larger or longer. Logistics and project management For offshoring of technical content to be successful, there must be very well-documented, agreed systems and processes, or one is risking chaos. The business may need to allow extra resource to project-manage the remote team. Where there is a last minute change to the product, with a documentation impact, an in-house team can respond relatively quickly and easily. Making changes to documentation that has been signed off as complete incurs additional costs and can add time to a project if the author has been assigned other work. Quality issues Differences in language, time zone and culture can make it more difficult to maintain quality. This is not to say that quality is always diminished, but that additional review time and quality assurance processes may need to be applied. Something as simple as use of US and UK spelling can add editoral time to a project if standards are not properly agreed, documented and policed. Translation co-ordination If translation and content creation are both outsourced to different companies, robust systems and processes need to be put in place to ensure that the outsourced team are writing consistently with existing content, using the correct terminology and not adding additional cost to translation. The organisation must be properly set up to route around all this content to avoid increased costs and quality issues. Company loyalty and commitment: Where there is already a team of authors employed, the business needs to consider the level of commitment to the company demonstrated by those authors. They may work unpaid overtime to make sure a release ships in time. They may provide documentation support to other parts of the business (such as reviewing specifications). An outsourced team will provide such value added services, but at additional cost. When budgets are very ridigly controlled, this reduces the flexibility benefit that offshoring should provide. Severance pay for existing personnel Where there is an existing team of authors, depending on company policy and local legislation, ending their employment may prove more costly than it is worth. Once disbanded and replaced by an out-sourced solution it is almost impossible for companies to reassemble the knowledge they have lost if they decide the decision to change was ill advised. Legal issues EU law is increasingly protective of casual labour and extending the rights of workers on short term contracts. This may affect the rates that outsourcing agencies are charged by their workers, and in turn the rates that those agencies charge their customers. There are many legal and taxation aspects (at a local level and within the EU) that may need to be researched and understood before a decision can be made. Adoption of new techniques and innovative content delivery Without the ability to interact and collaborate with other departments – support, training, product management, engineering – authoring teams will usually be limited to creating what can be called “traditional manuals”. This is a euphamism for manuals that simply reflect the product design and UI in textual form (“Database field: Enter your database name here”). The options for creating more targeted and effective materials, because that’s what the users and business really want, diminish when the authors are working to make a profit on hours billed, and simply don’t have the access to the internal – often tacit – knowledge of colleagues to strategize how deliverables could and should be re-thought or re-constructed for maximum benefit. In a world where authors are being brought closer and closer into the development process by Agile and Kanban bringing teams closer together and tighter alignment, putting authors “outside the walls” seems to be a step backwards and against overall market trends. If the company is trying to get more focused on users in its communications, making technical content one step further removed from users makes it hard to be user-centric. Although it’s not a conclusive study, the vast majority of our clients do not offshore technical writing. Many employ long-term contractors, but they are well integrated and operate almost like staff. Actual offshoring, especially internationally, is usually not mixed with adopting the latest practices or best practices in tools and management processes like: User-led information design Structured content (XML, DITA) Embedded help Single sourcing and dynamic delivery Component content management Join the debate: Do you work in a ‘offshored’ environment that provides technical writing skills ? Are you a manager considering offshoring tech comms functions? Are you a writer at risk of being offshored? Has your company already offshored tech comms? How is that working out? 2013-06-11T13:31:22+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/offshoring-technical-documentation-risks-and-benefits/#When:13:31:22Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-agility-2013-training-offer/news/ Mekon's Training courses are some of the most respected in the industry. As an added benefit to all attendees of Content Agility 2013, we are offering 10% off the range of available Mekon courses for all conference and exhibition attendees. Flexible Training Delivery Options Train: onsite, at our London facilities, or save costs and fit training into your schedule by training remotely. Many Mekon courses come with 90 days email support from your trainer. Contact us to take advantage of this offer. 2013-06-10T18:59:01+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-agility-2013-training-offer/#When:18:59:01Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/migrating-to-dita-with-framemaker/news/ Already a FrameMaker user? Thinking of moving to DITA? Not sure where to start? Presenter - Mark Poston, Mekon Ltd 10 September 2013 - Adobe UK HQ, Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK This one day session offers an overview of the main areas to consider when moving to DITA and provides examples from Mekon's previous experience in helping others make the transition. Agenda DITA basics Using DITA in FrameMaker: creating topics/maps, links, content references, key references Approaches to converting FrameMaker to DITA: issues, conversion tables, beyond conversion tables, comparison to manual, strategies for information architecture Publishing DITA from FrameMaker: static publishing vs dynamic publishing, RoboHelp, DITA Open Toolkit, DITAweb - Dynamic Publishing Benefits of dynamic content delivery Limited spaces available. To book your place contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_Y8QnntLw1T').innerHTML = output; //]]> . Presenter Profile Mark Poston: With over 15 years in structured content and documentation, Mark is an internationally recognised DITA expert, consultant and trainer, with extensive knowledge of Adobe tools. Mark has gained a broad knowledge and understanding of the publishing requirements of clients. His technical knowledge and approach to training meant that he was also able to run bespoke training courses for FrameMaker and Acrobat, ensuring that clients not only learnt the main principles of the products but also had a more in depth knowledge that allowed them to make the most out of the products. Testimonials - Mark Poston "Very good course leader, would be delighted to attend any other courses he gives." - Chris O'Shea, Senior Technical Author, ARM "Extremely knowledgeable and helpful, especially with 'hands on' help with the exercises" - Mark Dunn, XML Data Architect, Oxford University Press 2013-06-05T12:34:26+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/migrating-to-dita-with-framemaker/#When:12:34:26Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/lavacon-2013/news/ The 11th annual LavaCon Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies will be held October 21-23 in Portland, Oregon. LavaCon offers education and training on how to produce digital media projects. This years programme will feature Noz Urbina as a key note speaker. Find out more 2013-05-13T12:51:53+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/lavacon-2013/#When:12:51:53Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/join-the-mekon-demonstration-at-ua-europe-2013-16.45m-5.15pm/news/ UA Europe 2013 are offering a series of product presentations on 16 June. Join Rik Page, Senior Account Manager, Mekon at 1645 for Enhanced User Assistance through dynamic delivery and collaboration Moving from static, pre-defined documents to dynamic delivered content could be the game changer in customer experience that enables the all-important competitive advantage. Yet, many companies embarking on a DITA-based content strategy are simply streamlining the production of the same static document deliverables; be they print, PDF or HTML Help. This presentation will show dynamic delivery of user assistance and real-time collaboration being used in a "real-world" system. In addition to this demonstration Mekon's Rachel Johnston will be presenting in the main programme. Writing UA for mobile devices: best practice in a continuously evolving world - Rachel Johnston The proliferation of mobile devices presents a triple challenge to technical communicators. We may be required to document the devices themselves, we may be required to document applications that run on one or more mobile platforms, and we more and more often need to deliver content that can be viewed on mobile devices. The way we interact with technology is changing all the time — and the rate of change shows no sign of slowing down. What does this mean for technical communicators? In this presentation we'll look at these challenges in more detail and consider what best practice looks like, through a series of real-life examples. You will learn: Why traditional information design may not work for mobile UA Moving to mobile: how to develop your mobile strategy Characteristics of good (and bad) mobile UA How to make "ultraminimalism" work in real life Find out more 2013-04-29T10:50:42+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/join-the-mekon-demonstration-at-ua-europe-2013-16.45m-5.15pm/#When:10:50:42Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ixiasoft-dita-cms-user-conference/news/ Join Mekon at the IXIASOFT annual DITA CMS User Conference in Montreal. Exchange with your peers about your experience with the DITA CMS Learn more about the DITA CMS and best practices Discuss the evolution of the solution with IXIASOFT Foster networking opportunities amongst your peers 2013-04-18T11:01:18+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ixiasoft-dita-cms-user-conference/#When:11:01:18Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-2013/news/ Technical Communication UK is the annual conference that aims to meet the needs of technical communicators, their managers and clients, from every corner of the industry. The event will deliver more than 30 sessions over three days, with presentations, workshops, case studies, and hands-on product demonstrations from experts in their field. Find out more 2013-03-25T09:49:46+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-2013/#When:09:49:46Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/great-dita-trainers-mekon-wants-you/news/ Are you, or is someone in your network, a DITA specialist with experience of helping people make the move to DITA from unstructured content or traditional XML?  Have you used DITA in a CCMS or source-control-based environment?  Mekon Ltd are a world-leading supplier of content-related training and consulting.  Strong growth in our DITA-related business means we are looking for the best resources available to join our international team.We are reviewing applications from trainers principally for work in the UK, with additional need in Europe and North America. Some courses will be delivered remotely using teleconference software.This work will involve national/international travel. Applications for consultant/trainers are also definitely welcome!   Skills (in order of importance) Training Modular writing Technical Communication Information Architecture / Taxonomy   Software Skills At least one of these editors with willingness to learn the others as needed: oXygen, FrameMaker,  XMetaL, Arbortext Experience with one of these CCMSs is a strong plus: IXIASOFT DITA CMS, SDL Content Architect (Trisoft), Bluestream XDocs, Vasont CMS   Experience Minimum of three years of training, preferably in heavy or high-tech industries, medical devices, software and other strong DITA industries.  Accomplished presentation and training skills, including development and delivery of materials.   Include some reference industries, project overviews and if not sensitive, clients that can be contactable references.   Details & Contact Information   Contact:  Noz Urbina Contact Phone: UK +44 7739 522 002, +44 208 722 8400 // Spain + 34 625 467 866 E-mail Address: //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_TJmvt1514M').innerHTML = output; //]]> AND //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_aXXUOqzSx1').innerHTML = output; //]]> Job Type:  Trainer / Consultant Contract/Part Time: Contract (potential to hire) 2013-03-15T15:16:35+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/great-dita-trainers-mekon-wants-you/#When:15:16:35Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ua-europe-2013/news/ UA Europe is an annual conference for technical communicators who focus on software user assistance and online Help. It provides a unique update on the latest industry trends, technical developments, and best practice in software user assistance. This year the event is being held in Manchester and registration is now open, and the lists of confirmed speakers and presentations including are available including Mekon's Rachel Johnson presenting Writing UA for mobile devices: best practice in a continuously evolving world . The event offers a varied educational programme delivered by industry experts covering a range of topics including: collaborative authoring, HTML5 for technical communicators, single sourcing to multiple media and for multiple products, CSS3 for Help Authors, embedded Help, cloud-based authoring, all about hyperlinks, getting feedback from users, generating good PDFs, mobile user assistance, usability testing on a tight budget, structured authoring, localization in an Agile environment, what is just enough documentation, and much more! Find out more 2013-03-04T11:18:04+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ua-europe-2013/#When:11:18:04Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/adobe-creative-cloud-for-teams/news/ Give your team the world's best tools and services to help them collaborate, create, and publish: Adobe® Creative Cloud™ for teams. One affordable, simple-to-manage membership gives each person access to every Adobe Creative Suite® 6 app, as well as additional tools that aren't part of CS6 - like Adobe MuseTM, Adobe Acrobat® XI, Photoshop® Lightroom® 4, and Adobe Edge Tools & Services - all with no - cost upgrades as they become available. Your team can easily publish websites using the Adobe Business Catalyst® hosting service. And with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, Single Edition they can deliver stunning digital publications to iPad devices, without having to write code. Creative Cloud for teams makes collaboration easier than ever. Each of your team members receives 100GB of cloud-based storage, sharing and collaboration capabilities, device syncing, and access to Adobe's expert support organisation (Terms and Conditions apply). Flexible. Just like your team. Losing a designer but gaining a video editor? No problem. Adobe Creative Cloud for teams makes it easy to purchase and manage your creative software, so you can simply reassign seats as the team changes. License management and billing are completely centralized. And best of all, there's no need to worry about updates - Creative Cloud for teams gives you access to all the latest features as they're released, so your team can stay current. Contact us today to find out if you qualify for 30% off your first year's membership. For more information call +44 (0)208 722 8400 or email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_VixZ4dyRFh').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2013-02-26T10:57:18+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/adobe-creative-cloud-for-teams/#When:10:57:18Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/2013-beyond-concepts-for-the-future-of-content/news/ Presented by Ray Gallon (Culturecom) & Noz Urbina (Mekon) Date: 12 February 2013 Time: 15:00 (GMT)/ 16:00 (CET)/ 10:00 (UTC) Location: Online Ray Gallon and Noz Urbina take an opinionated look at some important questions for content professionals in 2013 and onward. In the run-up to the Content Agility Conference in London where they will both be looking in depth at fundamental concepts for the future, in this session Ray & Noz will look at key concepts they think are important based on their extensive project experience, such as mobile devices and the internet of things, embedded help, and dynamic, context-sensitive delivery. They will also discuss commercial tie-ins such as elusive ROI metrics and cross-silo collaboration, where different content, budgets and objectives can either align or clash. Find out more 2013-01-29T10:31:23+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/2013-beyond-concepts-for-the-future-of-content/#When:10:31:23Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/congility-s1000d/news/ Congility S1000D 2013 is aimed at the Aerospace and Defence sector. It is a must for anyone who currently has the need to produce, evaluate or implement S1000D. It is being held at the Arora Hotel June 25, Gatwick (London), UK and followed by our two day Content Agility conference from 26th to 27th June for anyone who is interested in XML and DITA. Find out more. 2013-01-11T13:36:51+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/congility-s1000d/#When:13:36:51Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/eclipse-s1000d-for-framemaker-7.0.0-release-notes-available/news/ Mekon are pleased to announce that release notes are now available for latest update of Eclipse S1000D 7.0.0 for FrameMaker. Should you have any questions please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_yEgPxL1HNv').innerHTML = output; //]]> Click here for full details. 2013-01-10T13:35:40+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/eclipse-s1000d-for-framemaker-7.0.0-release-notes-available/#When:13:35:40Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/happy-christmas-and-a-happy-new-year/news/ Happy Christmas and New Year to all our customers - we look forward to another successful year in 2013 Thank you to all our customers for choosing Mekon in 2012. Mekon prides itself with the level of service we offer. Over the years we have continued to build and support a growing number of customers who have been satisfied with our products and services. 2012 has proved to be another year for Mekon, seeing our customers being once again happy with the level of service they received from Mekon. Feedback included: “I continue to have excellent support from Mekon. All staff I deal with are extremely knowledgeable and I do not recall any issue I have raised which has not been resolved one way or the other.” BAE Systems “I would like to say Susanne Berg is excellent. Susanne is very helpful, polite and brilliant at pointing us in the right direction within Mekon.” EasyJet Airline Co “I believe that the support staff had my best interests at heart” CDS 2012-12-18T10:48:05+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/happy-christmas-and-a-happy-new-year/#When:10:48:05Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/2013-ad-training-calendar/news/ Mekon provide a comprehensive range of training courses for the Aerospace and Defence Industry. Listed below is our current 2013 programme being delivered at our training facilities in Sutton, Surrey. Our specialist training courses can be delivered as a standalone training course, or as part of an integrated, customised solution. The courses we currently offer are: Arbortext Editing (2 days) 20/21 February Business Rules (1 day) 5 February Eclipse iSpec 2200 (2 day) 14/15 February Eclipse S1000D for Arbortext (2 days) 30/31 January Eclipse S1000D for Framemaker Application Training (2 days) 6/7 February Adobe FrameMaker Working with Structured Documents and Books (2 days) 12/13 February Intro to S1000D (2 days) 24/25 January Simplified Technical English (2 days) 28/29 January ASD S2000M - An Introduction (1 day) 5 March All of the above courses can also be run as closed courses, which can be delivered on customer site or at Mekon’s training facilities. For prices, available dates and further information please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_cKnikXH50r').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2012-12-17T11:56:44+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/2013-ad-training-calendar/#When:11:56:44Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-ad-announce-congility-s1000d-2013/news/ Congility S1000D 2013 Congility S1000D 2013 is aimed at the Aerospace and Defence sector. It is a must for anyone who currently has the need to produce, evaluate or implement S1000D. It is being held at the Arora Hotel, Gatwick, UK on the 25th of June 2013 and followed by our two day Congility conference from 26th to 27th June for anyone who is interested in XML and DITA. Congility S1000D is a one day, two track event will cover a broad range of topics appropriate to delegates objectives and current level of understanding. Topics include S1000D and the ASD suite of specs, Business Rules, the Software Selection process, addressing legacy data, and more. In addition there will be a number of technology partners at the conference supporting the event available to give individual demos of technology used in the industry today including Mekon. For more information please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_AWzkfo5OC2').innerHTML = output; //]]> Feedback from our last Congility S1000D conference 'I found the event very informative and will help greatly with out decision-making as we enter the S1000D world.' 'Good conference and good range of topics.' 'It has made me ask questions now that I wouldn't of thought of before.' 'I appreciate Mekon's efforts in organising such a good event.' 2012-12-17T11:24:29+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-ad-announce-congility-s1000d-2013/#When:11:24:29Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/reusability-of-data-modules/news/ A little while ago the subject of re-usability has raised its head in the S1000D users Google group. In addition there was a recent DCL Labs announcement of a webinar entitled "Stop Repeating Yourself… Reuse &; Get Cleaned Up!" who clearly also see re-usability as a serious subject for their organisation. It is certainly a subject which is at the heart of the specification and allows solid long-term technical information maintenance at reduced costs due to non duplication of data. This is particularly important in projects which are going to be in service for 25+ years (and that is not counting the inevitable equipment enhancements to allow it to stay in service for even longer). Read Martyn Davison's thoughts in this area in his S10000D blog 2012-12-17T11:17:27+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/reusability-of-data-modules/#When:11:17:27Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-eclipse-create-s1000d-version-7.0.0-for-framemaker/news/ Mekon are pleased to announce the forthcoming release of Eclipse Create S1000D Version 7.0.0 for FrameMaker. This release includes several major changes/improvements to the application. 1 NEW FEATURES A number of new features have been introduced. These are listed below and there is a brief description of each one Availability of S1000D Issue 4.0.1 Configuration files can be located on a network Support for Windows 7 Support for FrameMaker 11 Support for AirBus CDIM Support for a six column IPD layout Comprehensive feedback provided during Installation 1.1 Availability of S1000D Issue 4.0.1 The ‘Bug Fix’ version S1000D Issue 4.0.1 has been incorporated into the Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker application. Mekon were hoping to include S1000D Issue 4.1 but this has not yet been formally released and although it is being used in the testing we will not release this until S1000D has finalized their work. 1.2 Configuration files can be located on a network The Data Reference Manager has for sometime been capable of having the various files located on a network thus allowing a number of Client machines to use common configuration and database files. This facility has now been extended to include the ID and Attribute configuration files. This ensures that management of large projects is much easier than has been previously possible with only one copy of each file being required rather than each client machine requiring one. 1.3 Support for Windows 7 Windows 7 introduced a number of changes to the security system. The installation of the Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker has taken these changes into account considerably reducing the number of difficulties that have been reported during installation. 1.4 Support for FrameMaker 11 The latest version of FrameMaker is now supported and where changes have been introduced ‘behind the scenes’ the application now handles these. 1.5 Support for AirBus CDIM A number of our clients supply S1000D Data Modules to AirBus for a number of projects. The Airbus CDIM can now be supported via a special Brex file which is supplied with the Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker application. 1.6 Support for a six column IPD layout In some projects the standard eight column layout needed to be changed to a six column layout. This change is now accommodated with the user being able to select the elements which are to be displayed in the right hand column. 1.7 Comprehensive feedback provided during Installation With the quantity of information which has to be written to the various FrameMaker files increasing over the years the length of time taken to install the Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker application has also increased. This resulted in the installation process appearing to halt where in fact a considerable amount of processing was being carried out. Mekon have introduced feedback during this process in the form of a ‘console’ to which comprehensive information is written to let the installer know how far through the process has progressed. 2 CORRECTIONS In addition to the new features there have been over 30 minor corrections to formatting and incorrect operation which have been reported either during internal testing or by clients. The complete list of corrections is listed in the Release Notes which are accessible via an application menu option. 3 HOW TO GET THIS PRODUCT 3.1 Existing Users Clients who have current Maintenance Contracts with Mekon Ltd will shortly receive an email informing them of the release of this application. The email will contain a link to enable users to access the Mekon FTP site and download the application. The link contains the location, username and password built in therefore access will be direct to the Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker installer. The installer is wrapped in a ‘zip’ file which also contains the installation guide. Those clients that Mekon knows from their records prefer to receive the updates by CD will receive on when it is despatched. If you or your company wish to transfer to this method of delivery please let Mekon Customer support know either by phone or email. Those clients who are using FrameMaker 11 and/or Windows 7 should take note of the comments included in the Installation Guide. 3.2 Prospective users Please get in touch with //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_Z5WZxFRHlO').innerHTML = output; //]]> to obtain product costs and maintenance information. 2012-12-17T11:11:56+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-eclipse-create-s1000d-version-7.0.0-for-framemaker/#When:11:11:56Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/intelligent-content-2013/news/ Intelligent Content has assembled a top-notch roster of 60+ presenters from disparate ends of the content spectrum to share their knowledge and experience with you including Mekon’s Noz Urbina. Two days of presentations, case studies, demonstrations, and mini-workshops led by the best and brightest in the content world. Software and services vendors will also be on hand to provide demonstrations and discuss the capabilities of their tools in the Technology Showcase. If you're involved in the creation, management and delivery of content in your organization, this event is for you. Bringing together the best and brightest from digital publishing, content management, content marketing, content strategy, customer support, instructional design, mobile communication, and information technology to help you better understand the issues impacting the way we work in the mobile, global world in which we live. In addition, mini-workshops are included in the price. For those who want to dive deeper, included are a variety of 75-90 minute mini-workshops. They’re more detailed than a typical presentation and designed to cover topics that require some focus to begin to master. We’ve included them in the cost of the conference. Although there is no extra charge to attend our mini-workshops, advance registration is required. 2012-11-27T12:04:50+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/intelligent-content-2013/#When:12:04:50Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-sign-up-to-become-an-adg-solution-provider-partner-for-uk-and-europe/news/ Mekon Aerospace & Defence and Absolute Data Group (ADG) have tightened their relationship with Mekon signing up to ADG’s new partner program to become an ADG Solution Provider Partner for UK and Europe. Mekon works with several partners to provide customised solutions for authoring, managing and delivering S1000D content. Like Mekon, ADG put customer service and support as a top priority and offer complete solutions at competitive prices. Tammy Halter ADG VP said; “ADG are pleased to recognise Mekon into our new Solution Provider Partner Program, said Tammy Halter, CEO of Absolute Data Group (ADG). The Mekon team has extensive experience in S1000D applications, software development and Adobe FrameMaker. When combined with ADG's R4i CSDB Server and R4i Binder print engines, Defence and Aerospace organisations now have access to high end software and experience, without the large price tag”…“Absolute Data Group and Mekon have continued to work closely together to ensure Adobe FrameMaker users that utilise the Mekon Eclipse pack for authoring, will now benefit from the tighter integration and interaction with the R4i CSDB, ensuring authors can quickly and easily create high quality content and publish that information to smart IETP's and PDF manuals.” About ADG Absolute Data Group (ADG) is a solutions company that enables Defence, Aerospace and Heavy Industry to create, manage and leverage information that is vital to the operation and maintenance of their mission critical assets. Easy to use and fast to implement, ADG’s off-the-shelf software products include the ASD S1000D compliant publishing suite (R4i Common Source Database), Asset and Resources Management tools (R4i BuildPoint) and competency based On-line e-Learning (Skills M5). The solutions can operate as stand-alone or as an integrated system. ADG solutions are also available as “Software as a Service” (SaaS), allowing small teams to gain access to the capability of larger teams. The integration between products allows for the same information to be used across various areas of the business consistently and quickly. Saving time, money and ensuring information out in the field, during maintenance and in training is all changed at the same time. Find out more about the ADG product range: R4i CSDB & IETP R4i Viewer R4i Binder For a demo of any of the ADG product range below please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_9c8Vi5XFIZ').innerHTML = output; //]]> or telephone +44 (0)20 8722 8400. 2012-11-05T13:12:38+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-sign-up-to-become-an-adg-solution-provider-partner-for-uk-and-europe/#When:13:12:38Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ccms-support-specialist/news/ About the Job Mekon are looking for a CCMS Support Specialist to look after our customers who are using a DITA Component Content Management System (CCMS). The CCMS Support Specialist is a semi-technical role working closely with both technical and non-technical customers to provide guidance and support assistance in the efficient use of their CCMS solution. This will include managing upgrades and replicating issues to diagnose faults in the software or user understanding. Managing the communication between CCMS vendors, Mekon technical staff and the client is a vital element. This role provides a great opportunity to deliver a superior customer experience in the development of this key technical support function. The CCMS Support Specialist will be happy working in both Windows and Linux environments and will have a working knowledge of XML semantic mark-up and XML Authoring Tools (for example Oxygen, XMetaL, FrameMaker, Arbortext Editor). Roles and responsibilities Primary responsibilities include: To act as the primary contact for, and to manage the relationship with, all CCMS customers (this role will initially focus on Ixiasoft DITA-CMS customers) To maintain the CCMS customer Windows & Linux Virtual Machines (VMs) with a mirror of their environments, requesting new VMs as required To manage CCMS customer issues – including replication, escalation to the vendors, where required, and resolution – in the shared vendor web-based reporting systems Ideal Candidate Profile The successful candidate will: Be enthusiastic and willing to learn new skills, and be capable of driving the development of the Support Specialist role and function with minimal supervision Be an effective communicator capable of exploring technical issues with both a technical and non-technical audience – to bridge the gap between developers and Tech Docs staff, and to handle questions from beginners and highly experienced/technical customers Possess the ability to work well to deadlines and under pressure, and in a methodical manner Qualifications and Skills The successful candidate will: Have a working knowledge of XML including semantic mark-up, DTDs, schemas and parsers, XML authoring tools, and of Windows and command-line Linux navigation. DITA is desirable but not essential. Possess GCSE Maths and English to grade C or above Rewards Salary range: £27k - £32k based on role fit Performance related bonus scheme 20 days paid annual leave plus UK Bank Holidays. Bonus days after 3 year’s service. Pension Scheme Parking available (1st come 1st served) On-the-job training with CCMS vendors and Mekon staff Location The role will be based in Sutton, Surrey. To Apply CVs should be sent to Mike Ewins at //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_QxUyxwpZJf').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2012-11-05T11:35:30+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ccms-support-specialist/#When:11:35:30Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/techdocs-uk/news/ The Defence Technical Data Conference for the UK TechDocUK is pleased to announce that the programme for the Conference is now completing. Key Industry speakers will demonstrate the latest document management systems and ways of delivering Technical Documentation throughout the afternoon sessions and during the exhibition. Whilst those that use technical documentation will give their comments on the current state of play. Throughout the Conference there will be an unprecedented ability to network and meet those that decide the policy at their booth in the exhibition hall. Mekon will be available throughout the event in the exhibition area. Find out more 2012-10-17T10:29:12+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/techdocs-uk/#When:10:29:12Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-strategy-the-book-available-online-now/news/ This month saw the launch of Content Strategy: Connecting the dots between business, brand and benefits co-written by Noz Urbina and Rahel Bailie. This is the first content strategy book that focuses on knowledge needed by project managers, department heads, and other decision-makers who find themselves in the position of needing to know about content strategy. These decision makers need enough knowledge, at a high-enough level, that when they are asked to submit a proposal for a content strategy they can make informed decisions and contribute to a strategic discussion about business-critical content. Available to purchase now online 2012-10-15T14:04:15+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-strategy-the-book-available-online-now/#When:14:04:15Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/congility-announces-2013-conference/news/ We are delighted to announce Congility 2013 Congility 2013 is being held from 25-27 June 2013, Crawley, UK. Congility 2013 is Europe's foremost content strategy conference for component and structured information. The theme for 2013 is: "The next 5 years: mastering communications in a multi device world". Congiltiy 2013 will cover more than just tools and technologies. Come and further extend your knowledge into the world of DITA and XML and learn how from global thought-leaders and diverse real-world case studies. Find out more Pre-register today for discounted entry. Interested in sponsoring at Congility? If so please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_8KfvR503Fj').innerHTML = output; //]]> or call 0208 722 8505. 2012-10-11T09:54:17+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/congility-announces-2013-conference/#When:09:54:17Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekons-mark-poston-and-9-year-old-son-raises-money-for-diabetic-charities/news/ This summer Mekon’s senior technical consultant Mark Poston has been walking and kayaking the length of the River Thames to raise money for two diabetic charities – the JDRF and Diabetes UK. Mark’s 9 year old son, Aaron, was diagnosed with having Type 1 diabetes last year and these charities have helped both him and the family to learn more about the condition. The length of the Thames Path that they are following is 184 miles and they have already completed 120 miles. Over the following weekends they will be walking to complete it. You can read about their progress on Aaron’s blog at http://www.mydiabeticlife.me.uk. 2012-09-06T09:46:30+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekons-mark-poston-and-9-year-old-son-raises-money-for-diabetic-charities/#When:09:46:30Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-management-strategiesdita-europe/news/ Join the Center for Information-Development Management for the 8th Annual Content Management Strategies/DITA Europe Conference in Frankfurt, Germany. Meet publications professionals who have implemented content management strategies and the OASIS DITA standard in their organizations and hear from representatives of key tools vendors who are actively supporting the technical communication community. If you develop, produce, and deliver technical information today, you know that “content is everything.” You also know that you have to keep costs under control and provide new solutions that deliver content in multiple ways to your customers. You’ve thought about “chunking” your content into smaller, reusable topics, but you don’t know how to get started. You’ve already begun your DITA implementation but you want to know what new features are coming in DITA 1.2. DITA Europe is your best starting point. 2012-08-31T10:35:51+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-management-strategiesdita-europe/#When:10:35:51Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-today-and-tomorrow/news/ Presented by Keith Schengili-Roberts, Mekon It’s been over six years since the DITA specification was officially released by OASIS and people could start using the DITA Open Toolkit. A lot has happened since early 2006, as DITA XML has become the fastest growing information standard for technical writing. Mekon consultant Keith Schengili-Roberts takes a look at where DITA has come from, who is using it, and where he thinks it will be going in the future. In this far-reaching presentation Keith focuses on that portion of the technical writing community that has embraced DITA XML, explores why it has been so successful, and also look at some of the issues holding it back from even wider adoption. He will also dare to prognosticate on the directions that DITA is likely to be used in the near future. View Now 2012-07-05T09:00:56+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-today-and-tomorrow/#When:09:00:56Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-strategy-workshops/news/ Content Strategies Workshops organized by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, and Rahel Anne Bailie, Intentional Design, the Content Strategy Workshops series brings some of the world’s most seasoned practitioners together to share their methods and experiences in a “hardcore content strategy” workshop setting including Mekon's Noz Urbina delivering Leveraging Your Business Assets with Multichannel Publishing. The first event in the series takes place October 9-10, 2012 in Portland, Oregon and is co-located with the LavaCon Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies. Find out more 2012-07-03T10:14:06+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-strategy-workshops/#When:10:14:06Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/tekom-tcworld-2012/news/ The tekom annual conference and tcworld conference together with the tekom trade fair are the world's largest event for technical communication and international information management. The tekom Trade Fair is a key event in technical communication in Europe and the conference again will offer a comprehensive programme covering the key aspects of technical communication and documentation. Mekon's Noz Urbina will be joining Rahel Bailie in her workshop Running a Content Requirements Workshop: The cornerstone of a content strategy. Noz and Rahel have recently released a new book titled Content Strategy for Decision Makers Connecting the dots between business, brand, and benefit. 2012-06-27T11:46:48+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/tekom-tcworld-2012/#When:11:46:48Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/migrating-to-dita-with-framemaker-seminar/news/ Already a FrameMaker user? Thinking of moving to DITA? Not sure where to start? Presenter - Mark Poston, Mekon Ltd Date: 4 December 2012 This one day session offers an overview of the main areas to consider when moving to DITA and provides examples from Mekon's previous experience in helping others make the transition. Agenda DITA basics Using DITA in FrameMaker: creating topics/maps, links, content references, key references Approaches to converting FrameMaker to DITA: issues, conversion tables, beyond conversion tables, comparison to manual, strategies for information architecture Publishing DITA from FrameMaker: static publishing vs dynamic publishing, RoboHelp, DITA Open Toolkit, DITAweb - Dynamic Publishing Benefits of dynamic content delivery Limited spaces available. To book your place contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_tcQw0jIQ3r').innerHTML = output; //]]> . Presenter Profile Mark Poston: With over 15 years in structured content and documentation, Mark is an internationally recognised DITA expert, consultant and trainer, with extensive knowledge of Adobe tools. Mark has gained a broad knowledge and understanding of the publishing requirements of clients. His technical knowledge and approach to training meant that he was also able to run bespoke training courses for FrameMaker and Acrobat, ensuring that clients not only learnt the main principles of the products but also had a more in depth knowledge that allowed them to make the most out of the products. Testimonials - Mark Poston "Very good course leader, would be delighted to attend any other courses he gives." - Chris O'Shea, Senior Technical Author, ARM "Extremely knowledgable and helpful, especially with 'hands on' help with the exercises" - Mark Dunn, XML Data Architect, Oxford University Press 2012-06-18T09:19:45+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/migrating-to-dita-with-framemaker-seminar/#When:09:19:45Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-management-strategiesdita-north-america-2012-was-once-again-a-huge-/news/ Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2012 provided an extensive speaker line up delivering high quality informative educational presentations from the continually developing world of DITA. Noz's presentation, Integrated DITA: Social, mobile, and context-aware content strategy, proved to be very popular, subsequently generating some interesting questions and thought provoking conversations with Noz and the Mekon team especially around DITAweb our cloud-based service that truly leverages the potential of structured information. If you wish to find out more or to discuss any of these aspects further please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_oRVEjjyKVB').innerHTML = output; //]]> . Couldn’t see Noz’s presentation live? Choose from some of our on-demand webinar options including: Introduction to DITA Twelve DITA Implementations: Lessons Learned DITA 1.2 - Keys and Conkeys DITA 1.2 - New Conref Features and Subject Scheme DITA 1.2 - Learning, Training, and the Rest To view our full webinar programme click here. 2012-05-28T10:09:05+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-management-strategiesdita-north-america-2012-was-once-again-a-huge-/#When:10:09:05Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-2012/news/ Technical Communication UK is the annual conference that aims to meet the needs of technical communicators, their managers and clients, from every corner of the industry. The event will deliver more than 30 sessions over three days, with presentations, workshops, case studies, and hands-on product demonstrations from experts in their field. Come and hear Julian Mufitt's presentation - The Future of Techcomm is Socially Enabled and Embedded - Delivering High Quality Help, Everywhere. Julian will be available throughout the event at the Mekon stand. Find out more 2012-05-21T09:27:56+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-2012/#When:09:27:56Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/30-off-adobe-framemaker-10-by-upgraading-from-framemaker-7.x/news/ HOT OFF THE PRESS 30% Discount when you Upgrade from FrameMaker 7.x to FrameMaker 10 Adobe announced that customers still on FrameMaker 7 can benefit from a special 30% discount on FrameMaker 10 Adobe is offering extremely attractive promotional pricing with 30% OFF on full licence price of FrameMaker 10 to any customer willing to upgrade from FrameMaker 7.X. Adapt the professional Standard in Unstructured and Structured (XML/DITA 1.2/S1000D) Authoring and Publishing. For 25 years FrameMaker software has helped individual authors, SMBs and enterprises develop high-quality technical content. FrameMaker 10 celebrates this trusted relationship by adding powerful features to flatten your learning curve, lower costs and increase productivity. A large percentage of FrameMaker installed base customers are still on versions 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2 (referred to as 7.X here). They have not yet upgraded to FrameMaker 10, the potential reasons are: Lack of knowledge about Adobe’s continued investments in FrameMaker. Several customers are still under the false impression that “FrameMaker is dead’, which was a rumour making rounds 5-6 years back Lack of knowledge about the enhancements made in FrameMaker since version 7.2, especially in version 10. This is a great opportunity to UPGRADE the 7.X customers to version 10. This limited period promotion is a great opportunity for 7.X customers to upgrade to 10. Generally, this upgrade path does not exist, and customers on FrameMaker 7.X have the only options to either upsell to the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5 per upsell or purchase a full license of FrameMaker 10. For more info on why you shout upgrade read this blog. For a review guide of Frame 10 click here. For a quote or more information on this offer please contact Susanne on 0208 7228400 or email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_1KCfkYfZNt').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2012-05-02T12:56:41+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/30-off-adobe-framemaker-10-by-upgraading-from-framemaker-7.x/#When:12:56:41Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-announces-the-release-of-eclipse-ispec-2200-for-arbortext./news/ Mekon has added a new product to their popular Eclipse product range. This industry leading iSpec 2200 solution for Arbortext, has been designed specifically to meet the needs of the Air Transport Authority (ATA) specification iSpec 2200. Eclipse iSpec 2200 for Arbortext is an authoring and publishing environment for creation and production of component Manuals (CMMs) and Service Bulletins (SBs) for civil aerospace applications. To download full datasheet click here. Alternatively full details can be found on aerospace-defence.com. Live Demo - 8 May 15:00 UK time Join Adrian Jordin on 8 May to see him demo the new Eclipse iSpec 2200 solution for Arbortext. To register for this demo or to discuss any aspect of this product further please email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_90CQPYXtOT').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2012-04-23T08:38:19+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-announces-the-release-of-eclipse-ispec-2200-for-arbortext./#When:08:38:19Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/gala-webinar-beyond-mobile-delivery-selling-the-vision-benefits-of-future-p/news/ Presenter: Noz Urbina, Senior Consultant, Trainer and Content Strategist, Mekon Ltd Managers of LSPs and brands struggle to understand the drivers behind modular, structured content (DITA being the common standard of choice). Join Noz Urbina, Senior Consultant, Trainer and Content Strategist at Mekon Ltd., for a webinar that will look at the questions of “Why DITA? Why now?” in the context of current and future trends in product development and communications. Modular, structured content is not only a technology but a methodology and way of working. When properly contextualized and explained, managers can see how modernizing processes and thinking can address: Mobile and multiplatform delivery Social media Third-party content, review, and process integration Search Usability and customer experience But how do we actually present this to managers? What are the benefits for the LSP? What are the benefits for the brand? Why should they rally together around DITA? What are the benefits for the end content consumer and product user? What does a project look like? What are the dangers and pain points of implementation? All these questions and more will be addressed during this webinar in the context of market trends and real world case studies. View Now on congility.com 2012-04-17T09:30:01+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/gala-webinar-beyond-mobile-delivery-selling-the-vision-benefits-of-future-p/#When:09:30:01Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mark-your-calendar-for-ua-europe-2012/news/ UA Europe is an annual conference for technical communicators who focus on software user assistance and online Help. It provides a unique update on the latest industry trends, technical developments, and best practice in software user assistance. This year the event is being held in Dublin and registration is now open, and the lists of confirmed speakers and presentations including are available including Mekon's Julian Murfitt presenting The Future of Help is Embedded and Dynamic (and Social). The event offers a varied educational programme delivered by industry experts covering a range of topics including: collaborative authoring, HTML5 for technical communicators, single sourcing to multiple media and for multiple products, CSS3 for Help Authors, embedded Help, cloud-based authoring, all about hyperlinks, getting feedback from users, generating good PDFs, mobile user assistance, usability testing on a tight budget, structured authoring, localization in an Agile environment, what is just enough documentation, and much more! Find out more 2012-04-17T08:15:59+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mark-your-calendar-for-ua-europe-2012/#When:08:15:59Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ua-europe-2012/news/ UA Europe is an annual conference that focuses specifically on software user assistance and online Help. It provides a unique update on all the latest industry trends, technical developments, and best practice in software user assistance. Topics include: collaborative authoring, HTML5 for technical communicators, single sourcing to multiple media and for multiple products, cloud-based authoring, all about hyperlinks, getting feedback from users, generating good PDFs, mobile user assistance, usability testing on a tight budget, structured authoring, localization in an Agile environment, what is just enough documentation, and much more! Find out more 2012-03-13T10:48:40+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ua-europe-2012/#When:10:48:40Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/introduction-to-html5-2day/news/ Mekon are offering a new training course on HTML5 using Adobe Edge. This course is designed for web designers and developers interested in designing and creating HTML5 web applications. It is useful for beginners and advanced developers that already have experience in developing web applications and are looking to get a start on the future of web development. To get the most out of the course, trainees should, ideally, be familiar with HTML and JavaScript, but this is not required. Courses can be held at Mekon's office in Sutton, Surrey or on client site. Objectives In this hands‐on HTML5 training course trainees will learn how to create web applications using HTML5. The course will provide both theoretical and practical, firsthand experience with the new HTML5 features so trainees can start using it in their projects right away. Upon completion of the training course, trainees will: Understand current device support for the various HTML5 features Understand all the major feature areas in HTML5 Learn to use the new HTML5 elements Learn to use new HTML5 semantic mark‐up for page layout and forms Learn to work with Video and Audio and Animation features in HTML5 Learn to work with Client‐side data storage For more information email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_Hel9bo1Vnr').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2012-03-13T10:01:41+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/introduction-to-html5-2day/#When:10:01:41Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-agility-theatre-slides-from-publishing-expo-available-online/news/ Publishing Expo in partnership with Mekon presented the Content Agility Theatre in the Multi Platform Publishing Zone. The theatre offered a varied and interesting programme of internationally recognised speakers from across the globe. The presentations proved to be popular and generated interest in a breadth of topics. In response to requests for copies of speaker slides, some of our speakers have made their slides available online at congility.com. Click here to view. 2012-03-12T14:26:22+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-agility-theatre-slides-from-publishing-expo-available-online/#When:14:26:22Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/lavacon-2012/news/ The 10th annual LavaCon Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies will be held October 7–9 in Portland, Oregon. LavaCon offers education and training on how to produce digital media projects. The aim of this year's conference is to assist organizations solve content-related business problems, increase revenue, and decrease production costs. The event offers two main areas of focus: 2012 management focus: Increasing Your Sphere of Influence 2012 technology focus: Creating and Deploying eBooks Over 20 new sessions and workshops have been added to the 2012 program including a Noz Urbina's lunchtime session Riding the Wave of Technical Communication Innovation on 7 October. Find out more 2012-03-05T13:57:39+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/lavacon-2012/#When:13:57:39Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/new-release-xmetal-author-essential-7.0/news/ We are happy to announce the availability of XMetaL Author Essential 7.0. The new release will further allow you to generate large volumes of information requiring customization, personalization, and distribution in multiple formats and languages. Highlights of XMetaL Author Essential 7.0 include: Cross-file operations including Spell Check, Word Count, Validate References, Detect Duplicate IDs, and Accept All Changes allows authors to perform and create custom cross-file operations across all files in a directory In-place, look-ahead element list Authoring Assistant enables authors to insert valid elements beyond the current cursor location and look up to 3 levels ahead in ‘Normal’ view New high-level APIs further extending the platform's customizability Attribute Inspector sorting allows authors to order the Al panel alphabetically or use the declaration-order as provided by the DTD Concurrent (or Floating) licensing option permits simultaneous use of XMetaL by one or more users, up to a maximum number of users agreed to at the time of purchase of the software Availability in German and French (expected release in Spring 2012) Windows 64-bit compatible Beginning with XMetaL Author Essential 7.0, JustSystems offers our customers two licensing options: Per-seat Licensing: When you purchase per-seat licensing, you must register each copy of XMetaL that you install with an XMetaL Licensing File. The total number of computers with the software installed cannot exceed the number of per-seat licenses purchased. Concurrent (or Floating) Licensing: When you purchase a concurrent license, you can install XMetaL on any number of computers. The number of users running XMetaL at any time cannot exceed the number of concurrent licenses agreed to at the time of purchase. Concurrent licensing gives your organization the flexibility to manage your licenses on-site with the XMetaL Licensing Server (XMLS). For further information please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_MQVZV71hmY').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2012-02-09T13:46:42+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/new-release-xmetal-author-essential-7.0/#When:13:46:42Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/training-programme-spring-2012-released/news/ Mekon provide a comprehensive range of training courses for the Aerospace and Defence Industry. Listed below is our current 2012 programme being delivered at our training facilities in Sutton, Surrey. Our specialist training courses can be delivered as a standalone training course, or as part of an integrated, customised solution. Mekon provide a comprehensive range of training courses for the Aerospace and Defence Industry. Listed below is our current 2012 programme being delivered at our training facilities in Sutton, Surrey. Our specialist training courses can be delivered as a standalone training course, or as part of an integrated, customised solution. Arbortext Editing (2 days) 17-18 July, 4-5 SeptemberBusiness Rules (1 day) 6 September Eclipse iSpec 2200 (2 day) 18-19 September Eclipse S1000D for Arbortext (2 days) 19-20 July Eclipse S1000D for Framemaker Application Training (2 days) 11-12 September Adobe FrameMaker Working with Structured Documents and Books (2 days) 26-27 JulyIntro to S1000D (2 days) 25-26 September Simplified Technical English (2 days) 17-18 September ASD S2000M - An Introduction (1 day) 24 July If there are courses that you are interested in but the dates are not convenient please contact us as alternative dates might be available. All of the above courses are also run as closed courses, which can be delivered on costumer site or at Mekon’s training facilities. For prices and further information please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_bHP1dpKy2i').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2012-02-02T12:13:43+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/training-programme-spring-2012-released/#When:12:13:43Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/drm-webinar-for-eclipse-s1000d-for-framemaker-and-epic-users/news/ Join Martyn Davison on 27 Febrauray at 1500 GMT to find out more about our DRM and learn how this tool can speed up authoring time and avoid typing errors. This feature is included free in our latest version of Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker and Epic. Click here to find out about DRM To register email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_rULkrXhaIF').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2012-02-02T11:51:15+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/drm-webinar-for-eclipse-s1000d-for-framemaker-and-epic-users/#When:11:51:15Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/framemaker-and-arbortext-shipdex-authoring-application-coming-out-soon/news/ Mekon’s ever popular Eclipse Application for FrameMaker and Epic will shortly be available for Shipdex users. The Shipdex protocol is the International Business Rules which have been developed to allow the exchange of technical and logistic data within the shipping community. The Protocol stipulates that ASD S1000D at Issue 2.3 XML should be used for this purpose and it goes further by defining several parameters and features of the ASD specification which need to be tailored for the shipping arena. By ensuring that all parties involved in a maritime project conform to the same Protocol the movement of data between contracted organisations is guaranteed. Mekon Aerospace and Defence consultants have a long experience of the ASD S1000D Specification and are therefore well placed to look at S1000D and apply the Shipdex rules. Find out more about Eclipse Shipdex for FrameMaker and Eclipse Shipdex for Arbortext. To find out more please email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_fAhKD4gygF').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2012-02-02T11:39:41+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/framemaker-and-arbortext-shipdex-authoring-application-coming-out-soon/#When:11:39:41Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/bookbuild-now-available-as-a-personal-licence./news/ Mekon Eclipse BookBuild has previously only been available as a sever license, we are now making this application available as a personal licence. This will make the product more accessible for smaller projects on a limited budget. Click here for full details of the Eclipse BookBuild application For pricing please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_ScjiLmDT6Z').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2012-02-02T11:32:37+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/bookbuild-now-available-as-a-personal-licence./#When:11:32:37Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-eclipse-ispec-upgrade-to-latest-version-when-taking-out-support-mainte/news/ For a limited time we are offering all our clients who do not currently have the latest version of Eclipse iSpec 2200 to upgrade free of charge to our latest version regardless of the age of your previous licence. In exchange we require you to purchase a 1 year support and maintenance contract. For more information on this offer please email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_RLgCQtoDyD').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2012-02-02T11:29:03+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-eclipse-ispec-upgrade-to-latest-version-when-taking-out-support-mainte/#When:11:29:03Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-has-enhanced-the-already-powerful-eclipse-ispec-2200-application-to-s/news/ One of Mekon's long standing customers were recently looking for a solution for authoring their CMM and SB to the Boeing template style. This required the Eclipse iSpec 2200 application to be developed further to support the specific Boeing styles. Mekon has been working with the customer on fine tuning the Eclipse iSpec application to ensure that it fully supports the Boeing document styles. This product is now ready to be released to both its existing user base and new clients who need to author CMM and SB to the iSpec 2200 specification. Boeing specific changes include: Boeing Document Style. Boeing format IPL, TOC, and LEP. Ability to renumber the MTOSS codes in sequence for (Tasks, Subtasks and illustrations) during the initial editing. Ability to position Transmittal letter and highlights before the title page. Option for table titles to be repeated with a continuation statement where tables break across a page. Ability to mark pages as revised where text has overflowed due to a change on a previous page. 2012-02-02T11:24:32+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-has-enhanced-the-already-powerful-eclipse-ispec-2200-application-to-s/#When:11:24:32Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-management-strategies-dita-north-america-2012/news/ In the 2012 CMS/DITA North America conference, you will certainly find much valuable information on managing content more efficiently, as well as implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard and others. But in 2012 you will also find a new direction. We are inaugurating an Emerging Technology track with a focus on new ways of offering up valuable content to customers and other consumers of our messages. CMS/DITA North America is the premier conference on the most effective and efficient ideas and methods for managing enterprise content. Meet presenters who may have started with technical publications but are now branching out to training, support, marketing, human resources, policies and procedures, and other content developers. At CMS/DITA North America 2012, join an outstanding group of individuals who are revolutionizing content development and delivery. The program is divided into four segments to give you an opportunity to specialize in one area or sample from several: Management, Authoring, Technical Solutions—including Mekon's Noz Urbina presenting Integrated DITA: Social, mobile and context aware content strategy. Find out more 2012-01-18T11:43:17+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/content-management-strategies-dita-north-america-2012/#When:11:43:17Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-publishing-expo-2012/news/ Publishing Expo is the biggest event of its kind in the UK and, from the traditional to the cutting edge, Publishing Expo provides something for the entire publishing team. The year-on-year success of Publishing Expo truly indicates that the need to be ahead of the competition and keep up with the fast changing world of publishing is felt across the industry and the hunger to develop and take advantage of the many platforms through which to publish content is vital. 2012 will again see Publishing Expo run alongside Technology For Marketing & Advertising, Online Advertising & Affiliate Expo and the newly launched Direct Marketing Expo; providing media, advertising and marketing professionals with everything they needed under one roof. Your Publishing Expo badge will give you free access to all of these leading shows and their agenda setting seminar programmes. Once again Publishing Expo in association with Mekon present the Content Agility Theatre. This forum brings a new dimension to Publishing Expo to educate and inform visitors on the future of publishing. Presentations in the Content Agility Theatre will focus on making information agile, portable and reusable. This concept is becoming ever more critical with the fast introduction of new delivery formats such as eBooks, ePub 3.0, Smart phones and Web 2.0. Visitors to the Content Agility Theatre will learn how content can be re purposed for different platforms and with the right infrastructure and foundation can drive new and dynamic products to make the most of your valuable content. 2012 programme This year offers a varied programme featuring the following speakers: Anne Hinsley, Digital Content Manager Anne Caborn, Director, CDA Brett Freeman, Content Publishing Specialist, Aptara Mark Poston, Senior Technical Consultant, Mekon Brett Freeman, Content Publishing Specialist, Aptara Mark Poston, Senior Technical Consultant, Mekon Raymond Lee, President, Iatopia James Allsopp, Design Director, PlayGen Judi Vernau, Director of Information Architecture Consultancy, Metataxis Rahel Bailie,Senior Content Strategist and Principal, Intentional Design Inc Scott Abel, Founder, The Content Wrangler Noz Urbina, Senior Consultant and Business Development Manager, Mekon Dan Fielder, Head of Content, Sticky Content REGISTER NOW! Come and meet Mekon at Publishing Expo 2012. Mekon will be exhibiting throughout the event on stand A43. 2012-01-17T10:42:44+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-publishing-expo-2012/#When:10:42:44Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon_migrating_to_dita_with_framemaker/news/ Already a FrameMaker user? Thinking of moving to DITA? Not sure where to start? Presenter - Mark Poston, Mekon Ltd Date: 21 February 2012 Location: Adobe Corporate Headquarters, West Tower, San Jose, California Duration: 09:00-17:00 (registration from 0830) Cost - $99.00 (including lunch and car parking) This one day session offers an overview of the main areas to consider when moving to DITA and provides examples from Mekon's previous experience in helping others make the transition. Agenda DITA basics Using DITA in FrameMaker: creating topics/maps, links, content references, key references Approaches to converting FrameMaker to DITA: issues, conversion tables, beyond conversion tables, comparison to manual, strategies for information architecture Publishing DITA from FrameMaker: static publishing vs dynamic publishing, RoboHelp, DITA Open Toolkit, DITAweb - Dynamic Publishing Benefits of dynamic content delivery Free with Entry As well as free lunch and parking, all attendees will be entered into a prize draw to win a copy of Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5 and will ALL receive a free copy of DITA 101: Fundamentals of DITA for Authors and Managers by Charles Cooper, Steve Manning and Ann Rockley. Limited spaces available. If you have any questions, please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_gSF5ZOdvSv').innerHTML = output; //]]> . Presenter Profile Mark Poston: With over 15 years in structured content and documentation, Mark is an internationally recognised DITA expert, consultant and trainer, with extensive knowledge of Adobe tools. Mark has gained a broad knowledge and understanding of the publishing requirements of clients. His technical knowledge and approach to training meant that he was also able to run bespoke training courses for FrameMaker and Acrobat, ensuring that clients not only learnt the main principles of the products but also had a more in depth knowledge that allowed them to make the most out of the products. Testimonials - Mark Poston "Very good course leader, would be delighted to attend any other courses he gives." - Chris O'Shea, Senior Technical Author, ARM "Extremely knowledgable and helpful, especially with 'hands on' help with the exercises" - Mark Dunn, XML Data Architect, Oxford University Press 2012-01-10T13:44:22+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon_migrating_to_dita_with_framemaker/#When:13:44:22Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/call-for-speakers-for-the-content-agility-theatre-at-publishing-expo-2012/news/ Publishing Expo the UK’s only multi-platform publishing is show dedicated to shaping the future of publishing. It is here that you will discover where the future of publishing is heading, and find the tools, techniques and knowledge to ensure your business remains at the forefront of this change. Once again, the Publishing Expo team have asked Mekon to organise a programme of educational presentations in the Content Agility Theatre at Publishing Expo 2012. There is a growing demand for publishers of all kinds to support many new channels of delivery such as eBooks, Mobile devices and still more on the web. To this end we want to bring a programme of short presentations that explain how new concepts, best practice and technologies are influencing publishers today and how can we learn from this to help our future content strategy to deliver more efficient workflows and new dynamic products. General themes will include best practices, content strategy, CMS, and case studies that demonstrate ROI. The Content Agility Theatre will be an ideal opportunity for people and organisations that are leading the way in how we generate, consume and make sense of information to share their knowledge and expertise in the ever changing and evolving publishing world. Presentations should be educational, conceptual or "thought-leading" oriented presentations, i.e., not a commercial sales pitch. Submissions must be sent to //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_kY12EwYvVx').innerHTML = output; //]]> . Please submit your initial interest and potential presentation title ASAP with your short description by close of business 9 January 2012. We look forward to hearing from you. Publishing Expo 2012 – CA Theatre Featured speakers: Rahel Anne Bailie, Senior Consultant and Content Strategist, Intentional Design, will discuss making e-Pubs relevant to the audience as well as the business. Noz Urbina, Senior Consultant and Content Strategist, Mekon Ltd., will discuss updating your content strategy for a community-driven world. Brett Freeman, Content Publishing Specialist, Aptara, will address publishing content to digital platforms. Anne Caborn, Co-founder and Content Development Specialist, CDA, will take you through governing digital content to achieve agility while avoiding risk. 2011-12-08T12:47:38+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/call-for-speakers-for-the-content-agility-theatre-at-publishing-expo-2012/#When:12:47:38Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-1.2-learning-training-and-the-rest/news/ Learn how you can construct Learning and Training content from DITA for interactive learning and assessment delivery; how DITA supports delivering Learning Management Systems and SCORM packages; and what else DITA 1.2 has to offer, and where you can learn more. View Now on congility.com 2011-11-02T12:39:40+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-1.2-learning-training-and-the-rest/#When:12:39:40Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-1.2-new-conref-features-and-subject-scheme/news/ Learn how to control metadata for various scopes; make quick, manageable, fine-grain changes to standard content with Conref Push; and learn to make use of DITA 1.2's new features for even simpler reuse and scaling. View Now on congility.com 2011-11-02T12:37:06+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-1.2-new-conref-features-and-subject-scheme/#When:12:37:06Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-1.2/news/ Learn to create keys and key references; combine keys with conditions for easier manageability; and use conkey references instead of conref to simplify reuse and management of content. View Now on congility.com 2011-11-02T12:32:09+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/dita-1.2/#When:12:32:09Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-and-data-conversion-laboratory-present/news/ Mekon’s Noz Urbina joins the DCL Learning Series to present his latest 3 part webinar programme looking at DITA 1.2. Part 1 - "Keys and Conkeys" Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011 @ 16:00 UK time Learn to create keys and key references; combine keys with conditions for easier manageability; and use conkey references instead of conref to simplify reuse and management of content. Register Now! Part 2 - "New Conref Features and Subject Scheme" Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011 @ 16:00 UK time Learn how to control metadata for various scopes; make quick, manageable, fine-grain changes to standard content with Conref Push; and learn to make use of DITA 1.2's new features for even simpler reuse and scaling. Register Now! Part 3 - "Learning, Training, and the Rest" Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011 @ 16:00 UK time Learn how you can construct Learning and Training content from DITA for interactive learning and assessment delivery; how DITA supports delivering Learning Management Systems and SCORM packages; and what else DITA 1.2 has to offer, and where you can learn more. Register Now! 2011-11-02T12:10:27+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-and-data-conversion-laboratory-present/#When:12:10:27Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/customer-point-of-view-portland-press/news/ Portland Press Limited, a publisher of journals in the cellular and molecular life sciences, appointed Mekon Ltd to undertake a root-and-branch review of our production workflows and electronic publishing processes, based on us wanting to take maximum advantage of having our content in XML format. We were impressed with Mekon's proposed strategy for carrying out such an audit and, in practice, felt that it worked very well in terms of teasing out our requirements, evaluating 'where we are now', understanding 'where we want to be in the future' and proposing 'how best to get there'. The team appointed by Mekon to work with us were highly efficient and professional; they showed a clear understanding not only of the technical aspects and requirements of the project, but also carried out the audit with a more holistic view of our business mind by understanding how the project fitted in with our business objectives and how, in many ways, it and its outcome were key to our company's future. I would have no hesitation in recommending Mekon Ltd as a partner to any organization, regardless of sector, that wishes use and develop its content to grow its business. Mike CunninghamProduction Manager, Portland Press Limited 2011-10-31T13:33:21+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/customer-point-of-view-portland-press/#When:13:33:21Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/s1000d-customer-success-story-with-adobe-framemaker-mekon-eclipse/news/ Battling with the steep learning curve of S1000D? Making costly mistakes with your content storage? Struggling to print? Join Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist Tom Aldous and Mekon’s S1000D expert Martyn Davison for an eSeminar series which will address the challenges of creating, managing and delivering this specialised content for print, interactive PDF and IETP. These webinars were broadcast in November 2011 and are now available on demand using the links below (access is via an Adobe Event Registration page). eSeminar Programme Delivering S1000D Data with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse Creating and Managing S1000D Data with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse S1000D Customer Success Story with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse 2011-10-17T10:54:26+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/s1000d-customer-success-story-with-adobe-framemaker-mekon-eclipse/#When:10:54:26Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/creating-and-managing-s1000d-data-with-adobe-framemaker-mekon-eclipse/news/ Battling with the steep learning curve of S1000D? Making costly mistakes with your content storage? Struggling to print? Join Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist Tom Aldous and Mekon’s S1000D expert Martyn Davison for an eSeminar series which will address the challenges of creating, managing and delivering this specialised content for print, interactive PDF and IETP.These webinars were broadcast in November 2011 and are now available on demand using the links below (access is via an Adobe Event Registration page). eSeminar Programme Delivering S1000D Data with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse Creating and Managing S1000D Data with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse S1000D Customer Success Story with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse 2011-10-17T10:51:58+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/creating-and-managing-s1000d-data-with-adobe-framemaker-mekon-eclipse/#When:10:51:58Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/creating-managing-delivering-s1000d-content-for-print-interactive-pdf-and-i/news/ Battling with the steep learning curve of S1000D? Making costly mistakes with your content storage? Struggling to print? Join Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist Tom Aldous and Mekon’s S1000D expert Martyn Davison for an eSeminar series which will address the challenges of creating, managing and delivering this specialised content for print, interactive PDF and IETP. eSeminar Programme Delivering S1000D Data with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse Creating and Managing S1000D Data with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse S1000D Customer Success Story with Adobe FrameMaker & Mekon Eclipse 2011-10-17T10:14:18+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/creating-managing-delivering-s1000d-content-for-print-interactive-pdf-and-i/#When:10:14:18Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/intelligent-content-2012/news/ Strategies for Reaching Customers Anywhere, Anytime on Any Device Held annually each winter, Intelligent Content 2012 is an intimate, three-day intensive learning experience designed to help attendees understand what is required to create intelligent content; content designed to be structurally rich and semantically categorized, automatically discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable and adaptable to any future functionality. The conference starts with a full day of hands-on workshops taught by some of the industry’s best and brightest practitioners — folks who are down-in-the-trenches helping organizations do the work required to succeed in a global mobile world. The following two days are filled with presentations, case studies, and discussions designed to provide you with the knowledge you need to add intelligence to your content and streamline the way you create, manage and deliver it. Whether you are struggling with traditional multi-channel publishing challenges, attempting to make your content findable to a worldwide, multi-lingual audience, trying to develop content-driven “apps” for smartphone users, or needing to create enhanced, interactive eBooks for iPads, eReaders, and other mobile devices, Intelligent Content is the conference for you! Intelligent Content 2012 brings together a dynamic group of speakers to share their insights, case studies and solid suggestions for success.  Speakers include Mekon's Mark Poston who will be presenting Delivering Dynamic Content Solutions Using DITA on 23 February. Mark will be available throughout the event with Julian Murfitt at the Mekon stand 2011-10-12T10:49:58+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/intelligent-content-2012/#When:10:49:58Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/publishing-expo-2012/news/ The UK's only annual event for the entire publishing industry beats all expectations! Publishing is changing fast, with new and traditional forms combining to create truly multichannel content. Publishing Expo 2011 helped to shape the future of publishing with over 100 leading industry suppliers and ground breaking education from publishing's best, covering any content and any channel, in print, online or mobile. Publishing Expo 2011 was an all round success! With an increase of 14% in pure visitor numbers and more than 6,000 total visitors on the show floor during the two days, it was a true indication that the need to be ahead of the competition and keep up with the fast changing world of publishing is felt across the industry, that the hunger to develop and take advantage of the many platforms through which to publish content is vital. Publishing Expo is the biggest event of its kind in the UK and for 2011 it was all new, with a new location, new investment, new features and new education. From the traditional to the cutting edge, Publishing Expo provided something for the entire publishing team. Find out more. 2011-10-12T10:39:56+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/publishing-expo-2012/#When:10:39:56Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-documentation-world/news/ Technical Documentation World is pleased to announce, in partnership with the UKCeB, the first Conference and Exhibition in the UK for all involved in the delivery of Military Technical Documentation. Uniquely, the Conference will appeal to all from those deciding Technical Documentation Policy, to those who have to use in the field as a vital part at the centre of equipment maintenance. Technical Documentation lies at the heart of equipment support and safety and needs to be correct, up to date and easy to use under any conditions; but it often isn’t. Mekon will be supporting Adobe throughout the event on the Adobe stand. 2011-10-12T10:13:35+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-documentation-world/#When:10:13:35Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/s1000d-world/news/ The third S1000D World Practitioners Event will be held in Hamburg on the 12th October 2011. The venue is the Novotel Alster, Hamburg. What makes S1000D World different? S1000D World focuses on the USERS of the specification and those who need to DELIVER data, not “blue sky dreamers” who dream of the next feature to add to the specification. Come and hear Mekon's Adrian Jordin present Using Adobe FrameMaker for S1000D Authoring. In addition Mekon will be available throughout the event on the Adobe stand. 2011-10-12T09:51:59+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/s1000d-world/#When:09:51:59Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-socially-enabling-documentation-in-the-cloud-dangerous-benefit/news/ A best practices overview and case study on leveraging the user community to enrich and contribute to formal product content online Presented by: Mekon's Noz Urbina Brought to you by: DCLabs Session Overview “Social” isn’t limited to WIKIs, Forums, Facebook, and Twitter. More and more organisations are looking at how community content can complement (and in some cases replace) their formal product content. Also, many are noticing how much overlap there is with social content platforms and their own intranets, internal business collaboration and knowledge sharing platforms. For most, putting documentation fully in the hands of the users – even internal subject matter experts – isn’t an option, 1or is simply not desirable. Also, creating yet another silo of social content isn’t helpful for users trying to find answers. So, how can community and formally created content play nicely together? On this session see best practice concepts and case study examples demonstrating: The pitfalls of poorly implemented social functions How the DITA platform can form the core of a socially-enabled documentation platform The key social features that organisations are implementing – and the back-end processes required to prevent chaos How internal SME and external customer communities can be leveraged for maximum benefit to both The impact on: editorial process, metrics and measurement, version management, content models, workflow, and metadata strategies VIEW NOW System Requirements Adobe Flash Player 8.1  Get Flash Player » Space is limited. 2011-10-04T12:23:43+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-socially-enabling-documentation-in-the-cloud-dangerous-benefit/#When:12:23:43Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-uk-proved-to-be-a-thought-provoking-event/news/ The feedback from the event has been positive, with it offering a varied programme of high quality and thought-provoking presentations.   At Technical Communication we exhibited our new product DITAweb - a dynamic content cloud-based service. Providing dynamic DITA content delivery and collaboration it can be integrated with component content management systems to allow content to be published. Find out more. If you are interested in finding out more about DITAweb or wish to discuss any other aspects of our services please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_OhZavI8ZkY').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2011-09-26T13:37:29+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-uk-proved-to-be-a-thought-provoking-event/#When:13:37:29Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-team-up-with-adobe-at-s1000d-world-and-technical-documentation-world./news/ Mekon has been invited to support Adobe at two events this autumn. S1000D World The third S1000D World Practitioners Event will be held in Hamburg on the 12th October 2011. The venue is the Novotel Alster, Hamburg. What makes S1000D World different? S1000D World focuses on the USERS of the specification and those who need to DELIVER data, not “blue sky dreamers” who dream of the next feature to add to the specification. Come and hear Mekon's Adrian Jordin present Using Adobe FrameMaker for S1000D Authoring. In addition Mekon will be available throughout the event on the Adobe stand. Technical Documentation World Technical Documentation World is pleased to announce, in partnership with the UKCeB, the first Conference and Exhibition in the UK for all involved in the delivery of Military Technical Documentation. Uniquely, the Conference will appeal to all from those deciding Technical Documentation Policy, to those who have to use in the field as a vital part at the centre of equipment maintenance. Technical Documentation lies at the heart of equipment support and safety and needs to be correct, up to date and easy to use under any conditions; but it often isn’t. Mekon will be supporting Adobe throughout the event on the Adobe stand. 2011-09-12T13:01:51+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-team-up-with-adobe-at-s1000d-world-and-technical-documentation-world./#When:13:01:51Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-release-of-eclipse-s1000d-for-framemaker-version-6.3-available-now/news/ This latest release includes the normal enhancements and fixes that have been identified since the last version and the Data Reference Manager (DRM). For more information email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_6YSUsZ2Oyp').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2011-08-11T14:26:19+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-release-of-eclipse-s1000d-for-framemaker-version-6.3-available-now/#When:14:26:19Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/the-best-minds-in-the-business-join-the-content-wrangler-for-content-strate/news/ That’s why The Content Wrangler has partnered with the tcworld Conference and tekom Trade Fair — the largest technical communication event in the world — to bring you Content Strategy Day, Wednesday, October 19, 2011, in Wiesbaden, Germany. Invited are the world’s most experienced and respected content strategy experts (see the roster below) to help demystify this often misunderstood discipline and to provide you with the information you need to get up-to-speed quickly on the hottest topic in the communication world today. Take a look at the roster of outstanding presenters and the topics they’ll be covering. Then, register for this must-attend event. The experts and the topics they’ll be covering Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler – Introduction to Content Strategy: Why do we need a content strategy, anyway? Joe Gollner, Gnostyx Research – An Introduction to Intelligent Content Strategies Ann Rockley, The Rockley Group – eBooks 101: Developing a unified digital content strategy for eBooks and apps Aaron Fulkerson, MindTouch – Thinking differently about customer support content: Designing a Help 2.0 strategy Rahel Anne Bailie, Intentional Design and Geoffrey Roberts, Nokia – Adventures in Localization: The oft forgotten stepchild of content strategy B. Noz Urbina, Mekon – Content Strategy is a many-splendored thing: Breaking down technical communication silos Find out more 2011-08-11T12:18:06+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/the-best-minds-in-the-business-join-the-content-wrangler-for-content-strate/#When:12:18:06Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/online-information-2011/news/ Online Information is the largest event dedicated to the information industry, providing an annual meeting place for the global information industry. Mekon can be found throughout the event on stand X306 Attracting thousands of visitors each year from around the world, this unique free to attend event consists of an exhibition with more than 200 international exhibitors plus an extensive educational seminar programme. The show covers 6 different areas: Content Management Search Solutions Social Media ePublishing Solutions Content Resources Library Management Find out more In addition, the highly regarded Online Information Conference runs alongside the exhibition in the Olympia Conference Centre. 2011-07-21T10:11:02+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/online-information-2011/#When:10:11:02Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/largest-dita-project-ever/news/ Hear more about one of the largest DITA Content Management projects of Noz’s career, and the biggest Content Technology Audits (CTA) he’s ever done. With 1000 dedicated technical authors worldwide and 10,000 engineers looking to contribute natively into DITA topics. Full roll-out numbers could go as high as 30,000 users globally.If the project design opts for direct Engineer contributions, this solution will involve more DITA authors than most companies have staff! Currently the active 1000 authors are working off the file system with no CMS support. Follow Noz as he works though this interesting challenge! Find out more. 2011-07-21T10:06:40+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/largest-dita-project-ever/#When:10:06:40Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/framemaker-and-eclipse-s1000d-ispec-2200-bundle-offer/news/ Eclipse Suite Framemaker Bundle Special Bundle Pricing Offered for a Limited Time Only Purchase Adobe® FrameMaker® 10 or Adobe Technical Communication Suite with Industry-Leading Mekon Eclipse S1000D and iSpec 2200 Solution. Save Money and Receive 1 Day of Free Training from Mekon Eclipse Suite FrameMaker Bundle pricing Eclipse S1000D Bundle £1,900 +VAT Eclipse iSpec 2200 Bundle £1,900 +VAT Eclipse Book Build £8,000 +VAT Orders of 10 or more licences receive an additional 25% discount. This offer is valid until 23rd January, 2012 Eclipse S1000D and iSpec 2200 builds on the exceptional power and usability of FrameMaker to provide the most powerful authoring and publishing solution on the market. With this industry-leading solution, you can easily produce compliant S1000D or iSpec 2200 output in XML, SGML, PDF or print straight out of the box, saving time and money, whilst reducing the cost of adopting the standard. Mekon brings you this offer in partnership with Adobe, further demonstrating Adobe’s commitment and support of the Aerospace and Defence industry. For more informationCall Susanne Berg on: +44 (0) 208 722 8400 Or email: //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_HDHs4MDgKX').innerHTML = output; //]]> 2011-07-14T10:08:52+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/framemaker-and-eclipse-s1000d-ispec-2200-bundle-offer/#When:10:08:52Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/new-dita-1.2-training-courses-announced/news/ Mekon are happy to announce that our senior XML consultant and trainer Noz Urbina will be leading sessions at Congility South in September 2011.  Two Levels of DITA Workshop-style Courses Available The beautiful and cost effective venue of Valencia, Spain allows Congility South to offer excellent value for your training investment, even when considering travel costs are required. Fees include: Hotel stay for all training days, courseware, 90 days personal email support from your trainer, breakfast and lunch every day.  Choose from two courses, or get a discount for attending both as a package: Introduction to DITA Advanced DITA / 1.2  2011-05-13T16:23:50+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/new-dita-1.2-training-courses-announced/#When:16:23:50Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-platinum-sponsors-of-congility-2011-formerly-x-pubs/news/ After 5 years of supporting the X-Pubs conference with the contribution of organisers and sponsorship, Mekon are sponsoring and organising the now renamed and refocused Congility conference featuring both general industry and S1000D (Aerospace and Defence) colocated events May24-26 just south of London in the Gatwick/Crawley area. Other key sponsors include Adobe, Acrolinx, Quark and Information Mapping. X-Pubs always endorsed a wide-reaching, cross-functional approach to XML solutions. Congility takes this same wide focus and ads the ideas of how XML, DITA, S1000D and other structured formats can interact and integrate with less formal or structured content to deliver the best corporate benefit. Bringing overall Content Strategy very much to the fore, Congility is all about how organisations can give their content 'agility', increasing quality, revenue contribution, and lowering costs for improved ROI. Read about the main and S1000D events here: http://www.congility.com 2011-05-02T09:02:38+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-platinum-sponsors-of-congility-2011-formerly-x-pubs/#When:09:02:38Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/creating-a-master-page-colour-definition-and-background-page-colour-in-adob/news/ Mark Poston shows you how to creating a master page, colour definition and background page colour in Adobe FrameMaker on Vimeo. Created in response to a customer who recently asked how to do this, uploaded to benefit the user community: View video 2011-04-26T10:34:20+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/creating-a-master-page-colour-definition-and-background-page-colour-in-adob/#When:10:34:20Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/marketing-content-strategy-vs.-technical-communication-content-strategy/news/ We’re in an intensely exciting time now in “the World of Content”. Content Strategy and Social Media are the buzzwords on everyone’s lips. Like any new and game-changing hot-button, there’s as much debate about what we’re even talking about as there is about why it’s important, or what we should do about it. Follow Noz's multi-part blog is going to take a look at how Content Strategy is affecting the ‘Word of Content’ and the world of the content professional View Blog. 2011-04-26T10:24:59+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/marketing-content-strategy-vs.-technical-communication-content-strategy/#When:10:24:59Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/podcast-content-strategy-and-agility-with-noz-urbina/news/ I'd Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson's blog about the latest trends in communication, posts a podcast featureing Noz Urbina. In this podcast, Tom and Noz talk about the following: What a content strategist tackles that a technical writer does not How content strategy differs from marketing How one becomes a content strategist Bridging enterprise silos in your content strategy, especially without the ability to enforce your strategy The role of metadata and taxonomy in content strategy Challenges with the diversity of authoring platforms and tools in content strategy View Podcast » 2011-04-26T09:39:56+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/podcast-content-strategy-and-agility-with-noz-urbina/#When:09:39:56Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/the-content-wranger-interviews-mekons-noz-urbina/news/ Scott Abel form The Content Wrangler interviewed Noz Urbina on March 8, about the upcoming Congility 2011 conference. In this meeting, Noz shares his thoughts and discusses the relevance and importance of this event. View interview 2011-03-09T10:15:22+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/the-content-wranger-interviews-mekons-noz-urbina/#When:10:15:22Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/rare-opportunity-to-visit-the-1710-naval-air-squadron-front-line-scientific/news/ The 5th Meeting of ISTC Southern Group is to be held on 23 March 2011 in Portsmouth. The Southern area group is pleased to have the rare opportunity to visit the MOD restricted site of 1710 Naval Squadron Front Line Scientific & Technical Support Team. The event offers the opportunity to hear and interact on a range of interesting topics from Aircraft accident investigation to actual hands on with the helicopter rotor blade test unit. In addition, Stephen Crabbe from Portsmouth University will be talking about controlled language. This is a FREE learning and networking opportunity for all technical communicators. Please note due to security requirements, obtaining passes and transportation you must register for the event in advance. Find out more. 2011-03-09T10:04:50+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/rare-opportunity-to-visit-the-1710-naval-air-squadron-front-line-scientific/#When:10:04:50Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/publishing-expo-2011-partner-with-mekon-in-the-content-agility-theatre/news/ Publishing Expo is the UK's only annual event for the entire publishing industry. Publishing is changing fast, with new and traditional forms combining to create truly multichannel content. Publishing Expo is the event shaping the future of publishing. Any content, any channel, in print, online or mobile. Publishing Expo in partnership with Mekon and Quark will bring you the Content Agility Theatre in the Multi Platform Publishing Zone, bringing a new dimension to Publishing Expo to educate and inform visitors of publishing in the future. The theatre is offering an exciting programme of leading speakers from the industry including; Katy Loffman, Michael Colins and Brett Freeman. View full programme Visitors will learn how content can be re purposed for different platforms and with the right infrastructure and foundation can drive new and dynamic products to make the most of your valuable content. Register now for free entry Mekon are leaders in content management, and actively contribute to the development of standards and technologies based on XML. Come and discuss discuss how XML simplifies eBooks, ePublishing and multiformat delivery with Mekon in the Multi Platform Publishing Zone. The Mekon team will be available through the event at stand B51. 2011-02-10T14:28:18+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/publishing-expo-2011-partner-with-mekon-in-the-content-agility-theatre/#When:14:28:18Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/adobe-tcs-launch-event-feb-11-london/news/ Adobe TCS Launch Event Feb 11, London – Mekon’s Julian Murfitt and more presenting On 11th January, 2011, Adobe released the latest version of the world’s most popular desktop authoring and online documentation publishing tool, the Technical Communication Suite. Version 3 now includes advanced single-source authoring, rich media integration, and versatile multi-device publishing capabilities. This Exclusive London Launch Event to celebrate the release of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3, will feature talks by Mekon’s Julian Murfitt, members from Adobe Engineering, and other industry experts and trusted solution partners. Seating is extremely limited for this event! Please apply for one of the few available places now by clicking on the link below: http://www.adobe.com/uk/events/tcslaunch/ When Friday 11th February, 2011 Where Adobe Regent’s Park Offices, 12 Park Crescent, Westminster, London W1B 1PH Time Presentations 15:30 - 18:45 Cocktail Reception 18:45 - 20:00 2011-01-28T15:47:40+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/adobe-tcs-launch-event-feb-11-london/#When:15:47:40Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/20-things-20-seasonal-greetings-from-mekon-from-all-corners-of-the-globe/news/ For the past 20 years people worldwide have worked with Mekon to help them deliver content through their innovative solutions. We would like to thank all the people we have worked with over the past 20 years and wish them a seasonal greeting from their part of the world. Below are 20 local greetings from various locations across the world (all from different areas where we have worked!). Now you can impress your friends at holiday gatherings with as many as you can memorise. WARNING: Festive beverages may cause lack of comprehension in one or more languages, including your native one: 2010-12-13T16:04:38+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/20-things-20-seasonal-greetings-from-mekon-from-all-corners-of-the-globe/#When:16:04:38Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-teams-up-with-publishing-expo/news/ Publishing Expo is the must attend event for anyone working in the changing world of publishing. Following the success of the 2010 event - with a record attendance of over 3,300 - Publishing Expo 2011 is moving to a bigger, more modern venue better befitting the innovative and fast moving UK publishing industry. As part of this, Publishing Expo is joining forces with Congility, formerly known as X-Pubs and run by Mekon to deliver the Content Agility seminar theatre bringing a new dimension to Publishing Expo to educate and inform visitors of publishing in the future. Traditional publishers have long since been focused on the final product ending up on paper. More recently the demand for eBooks and eZines are forcing publishers to publish to multiple channels which to date involves PDF conversion and rudimentary page turners. XML is a standard that can be used to mark up content making it possible to re purpose your publications in many more ways than was ever thought possible in the past. The Content Agility Seminar Theatre will be available to explain how content can be re purposed for different platforms and with the right infrastructure and foundation can drive new and dynamic products to make the most of your valuable content. A call for speakers will be opening soon - if you have a publishing story to share in this area, please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_ya6pJ6CGyW').innerHTML = output; //]]> . Click here to register 2010-12-13T11:09:15+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-teams-up-with-publishing-expo/#When:11:09:15Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-s1000d-in-adobe-framemaker1/news/ Featuring Martyn Davison, Senior Consultant, Aerospace and Defence Department, Mekon. VIEW RECORDING Contrary to some negative community buzz, Adobe FrameMaker does support XML. With the Mekon Eclipse extension it can support S1000D, the specification used primarily in the Defence industry, from the very first to the very latest versions of the standard. View this eSeminar to see how Adobe FrameMaker makes the job of Authoring in S1000D easy and hassle-free. You will learn about: The wide range of Data Module types supported The importance of high-quality print style sheets How hotspot support eases content creation How to handle Ref DMs How CGM graphics can be supported How auto-generated content can accelerate authoring About working with or without a CSDB The various delivery options on offer from FrameMaker About Martyn Martyn is a Senior Consultant within the Aerospace and Defence Department at Mekon, specialising in Development and Implementation of ASD S1000D applications and systems within the Technical Documentation environment. In recent years he has been heavily involved in the Mekon S1000D Fram­eMaker based applications for many years. During this time he has pro­vided a source of help and advice to users new to S1000D and has followed the development path of the Adobe FrameMaker product from early versions (5.5.6) through to the latest Version 9. 2010-11-17T10:48:05+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-s1000d-in-adobe-framemaker1/#When:10:48:05Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/win-one-of-two-great-prizes-with-mekon-at-online-information-2010/news/ Register for your free entry badge at online-information.co.uk. Come and meet Mekon on stand X05 and enter our draw to win an XML focussed Mekon Content Strategy Audit, or a ticket for Congility 2011 conference (value £500). Online Information 2010 is the largest event dedicated to the information industry, providing an annual meeting place for the global information industry. Mekon staff will be available throughout the event in the XML Pavilion to share their mark-up technology and publishing experience on a one-to-one basis. The XML Pavilion brings together a number of XML technologies and is hosting a dedicated XML theatre offering a full XML seminar programme including Internal and External Communities: A Framework for modern content delivery by Mekon's Julian Murfitt. If you would like to take this free opportunity to arrange a private meeting with Mekon and explore further into your organisation's XML needs, email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_Uj54vebsCg').innerHTML = output; //]]> . We look forward to meeting you in the XML Pavilion! 2010-11-15T13:42:40+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/win-one-of-two-great-prizes-with-mekon-at-online-information-2010/#When:13:42:40Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-twelve-dita-implementations-lessons-learned-recording-availabl/news/ This webinar was broadcast on November 4, prior to DITA Europe 2010. VIEW RECORDING» This webinar discusses the results of interviews with the implementers of 12 DITA installations. Join this webinar to learn: Find out what they did right What went wrong? What were the business drivers? How long did it really take? Learn from your peers across a broad range of industries what really happened, and learn how your expectations & results measure up. If you would like to discuss any aspect of the webinar further, please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_tGg5i3N0vJ').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2010-11-15T10:42:07+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-twelve-dita-implementations-lessons-learned-recording-availabl/#When:10:42:07Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-uk-event-trends-in-technical-communications/news/ Date: Wednesday 17th November, 2010 Where: Adobe Regent’s Park Offices, London Time: Presentations from 4-6pm; Cocktail Reception 6-7pm Places are limited - REGISTER NOW. The past fifteen years has seen a sea change for technical communications occur thanks to advances in technology. People are interacting with the internet in an entirely new way, using it for social networking, information gathering, and knowledge sharing. Come and join an Executive Event featuring expert speakers including Mekon's Julian Murfitt, to discuss emerging trends and strategies which will teach you to deliver effective and relevant documentation for your customers. This event will feature the following industry experts: Pawan Goyal, Director of Engineering for Adobe Technical Communications Suite Matt Wicks, Multimedia Technical Communications Expert Peter Grainge, Online Help Expert Julian Murfitt, Content Strategy Expert Seating is extremely limited for this free event, so please register your place now by clicking on the link above. 2010-11-01T12:05:34+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-uk-event-trends-in-technical-communications/#When:12:05:34Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-uk-2010-another-successful-year/news/ Technical Communication UK 2010 proved to be popular. The feedback has been positive and we hope that you enjoyed the success of the event. The key note presentation, The Yellow Brick Road to Effective Content Strategy, proved to be popular, subsequently generating some interesting questions and thought provoking conversations with Julian and the team on the Mekon stand. The main discussions were around how to build and articulate the case for change. Following on from this, how to scope the project, once there is buy in from management. To discuss any of these aspects further please contact //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_p9Kv88g5H6').innerHTML = output; //]]> . 2010-10-05T13:37:14+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/technical-communication-uk-2010-another-successful-year/#When:13:37:14Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ua-2010/news/ UA 2010 was an excellent event, offering high quality presentations with thought provoking content including a dedicated DITA track. Feedback from Mark Poston’s session – Interactive Dynamic Assistance - Engaging Users with the Functions They Want has been very positive and enthusiastic with several people coming to see us afterwards to find out more about what is possible with DITA and dynamic delivery in their work environment. Still looking to explore the world of DITA? Register for our free webinar Introduction to DITA. This beginners session will cover the basics of creating DITA topics, assembling topics using maps, creating relationship tables, and delivering it all to various media. DITA Training Mekon provide conceptual training in structured editing and information management techniques using the latest international standards including DITA. Find out more. 2010-09-30T13:24:44+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/ua-2010/#When:13:24:44Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mark-poston-takes-a-practical-look-at/news/ Join the Center for Information-Development Management for the 6th Annual DITA Europe Conference in Vienna (15-16 November 2010). Meet publications professionals who have implemented DITA in their organizations and hear from representatives of key tools vendors who are actively supporting the DITA community. DITA Europe gives you many opportunities to learn about DITA from people who are in the midst of their own implementations. Learn the benefits of managing information as topics and the pitfalls to avoid for success. Mekon's Mark Poston will be delivering his presentation: Internal and External Communities: A Practical Look at Modern Content Delivery. Mark will be available throughout the event on the Mekon stand, to discuss your DITA requirements. Find out more on the conference website. 2010-09-21T09:33:39+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mark-poston-takes-a-practical-look-at/#When:09:33:39Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-joins-the-s1000d-user-forum-2010-in-moscow/news/ The Ninth S1000D User Forum 2010 will be held between the 27th and 30th September, 2010 in Moscow, Russia at the Aerostar Hotel. The theme of the event, hosted by the CALS R&D Center "Applied Logistics", will be "Application of S1000D within a state-of-the-art Integrated Logistic Support environment". ASD S1000D is the International Specification for Technical Publications utilizing a Common Source Database. The Forum will mark the release of advance information about the latest issue of the specification (S1000D issue 4.1), planned to be published in spring 2011. This Forum will present the latest developments and implementations of the S1000D specification, how it relates to other ASD support specifications and how software has been developed to support it. Susanne Berg from Mekon will be available throughout the event on the Mekon stand in the exhibition area. Find out more on the conference website. 2010-09-21T09:06:14+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-joins-the-s1000d-user-forum-2010-in-moscow/#When:09:06:14Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/20-mekon-customer-quotes/news/ Here is the next instalment of Mekon's 20-things series. This time we step back and let our customers speak for us. 1. Andy Scott, Elekta Service Engineering & Documentation Manager (Medical Devices) "Radical change to working practices can be met with resistance, and this was anticipated. However the Global Information Management program, and in particular the content management module, acted as a common denominator where everyone, irrespective of geography, language, culture and business unit has seen the collective benefits of the strategy. As Elekta will continue to grow, with Mekon we have implemented an information infrastructure that can respond to business demand just by adding new modules." 2. Team Manager, Data Capture Technologies, Biostatistics and Data Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline (Pharmaceuticals) "The Data Capture Technologies group has enjoyed working with Mekon and I would have no hesitation in recommending them to you. Throughout the project, Mekon adopted a proactive approach and quickly became a full member of the Project Team." "They gained a detailed knowledge of our requirements relating to CRF production and consequently developed an innovative bespoke solution that has resulted in significant reduction in the complexity of both document structure and printing." 3. Chris Hadley, User Information Manager, Micro Focus (Software) "As a market leader in application and modernisation software, Micro Focus is dedicated to delivering world-class information to its customers. We understood the business need for moving to a CMS, but on our own, we would not have been able to survey such a complex software market quickly or effectively. By combining our specific business needs with their project framework, Mekon helped us to make the most of our available budget and provided an unbiased view of the software available. As a result, we were able to make informed choices on how best to balance financial, resource and time considerations to provide maximum benefit to our customers." "Mekon were able to gather our requirements and produce a shortlist of potential vendors in a fraction of the time (and with a greater guarantee of success) than we would have been able to." 4. Mark Southee, Documentation Manager, SurfControl Plc (Software) "The Content Strategy Audit gave me confidence I was recommending the right solution and enabled me to provide the business with accurate return on investment information." 5. Verner Andersen - Radiometer (Medical Devices) "Noz was very responsive and adapted the [DITA XMetaL] course to our needs. Noz concentrated on teaching us the most important issues instead of trying to load us with as much information as possible. The checklists that we made for ourselves, the stylesheet developers and CMS people are invaluable. We did not get time to make a prioritized plan about in which order to proceed with our DITA project. The extensive after-course material may however, help us to get a clearer picture of the implementation steps." 6. Edexcel (Publishing) "The team from Mekon had a great customer focus. They quickly understood our business processes & needs and worked collaboratively & flexibly to overcome issues during the project lifecycle." 7. easyJet (Commercial Airlines) "Excellent overall service from Susanne Berg. Very helpful and always available over the phone or email if I ever require any specialist service. Always keeps us up to date with new services on offer from Mekon but never force sells anything." 8. Content Management and Forms Solutions Customer (Financial Services) "Getting timely information to our clients is very important to us. Using traditional methods to maintain complex data for our publications was slow and expensive. The new system means that work that formerly took two weeks can now be completed in a matter of days, and we can maintain accurate data right up to our publication deadline. The production time and delivery to our clients has been dramatically reduced." 9. Training Customer (Publishing) "Very specific skills were needed to take [our product] from a comic strip to a fully fledged weekly publication. We needed help from experts who were capable of providing hands-on, one-to-one training condensed down to cover the skills we needed to put the comic together under very tight deadlines. The training from Mekon Learning was just what we needed. It immediately gave us the practical skills we required to lay-out and design the new look Striker. We didn’t have a lot of time so I was pleased that Mekon Learning was able to train us so quickly and thoroughly." 10. Major UK Supermarket Development Manager (Food Industry) “I should like to thank your team, for the assistance, professionalism and expertise that they have shown in the advice and execution of this project and the way they have approached and tackled the difficulties.” 11. InDesign Training Customer (Health Services Industry) "I have been meaning to write to you for a couple of weeks. I took introductory courses to both InDesign and Illustrator with Carol in March, and was very impressed with Mekon - and Carol's teaching. As I work for a place which is funded by a charity, I also wanted to thank you and Vicki Poke for working with us to make it possible for me to take these courses. I feel I have learned a lot and can't wait to get the time to put what I have learned to good use!" 12. Content Management Solutions Customer (Aerospace Engineering) "I have always felt Mekon to be particularly aware of our, sometimes, unique problems as their customer, focusing on our needs rather than following a wider agenda. Even when Mekon may not be able to offer a particular service (i.e. translation) they take the trouble to help as far as possible in providing a viable solution and/or advice." 13. Aerospace Tools Customer (Aerospace Manufacturing) "In my experience Mekon have fulfilled all my expectations in a timely and professional manner." 14. Aerospace Tools Customer (Aerospace Engineering Solutions) "The support I have received from Mekon for the Eclipse S1000D application has been outstanding." 15. Aerospace Tools Customer (Defence) "Support staff have always been courteous and when required have sought advice from colleagues so as to provide a speedy solution in response to our needs thereby showing we are communicating with a team and not just an individual." 16. World-leading International Publisher (Business Info, Education and Consumer Publishing) "I would like to say thank you Keith Nicholson and Louise Poston as they are both true examples of fantastic customer support. Keith has been a prime example of what other companies lack, he has also dealt with all of my problems very quickly and answered queries in a very timely manner." 17. Mekon Training Customer "The overall service I have received from Mekon has been excellent - both in terms of the training I received and the support after the training." 18. Content Management and Forms Solutions Customer (Educational Publishing) "When I've contacted Mekon they've solved my problem immediately and when not possible they have done work and come back to me. They truly appreciate the necessity for speed in my work." 19. Aerospace Tools Customer (Aerospace Manufacturing) "We’re a long-standing client of Mekon, so we’re well aware of their expertise in the Aerospace and Defence industry. Mekon’s Eclipse Suite is the broadest and best range of applications for authoring in S1000D, providing an easy authoring environment that requires virtually no training to use. Naturally, they were always going to be the leading candidates for the F-35 documentation project." 20. Dan Smith, Senior Technical Author, Micro Focus (Software) "Just a note to thank you for your efforts in running the XMetaL Developer course I attended recently. I got a lot out of it, and I appreciated your efforts in customizing it for our requirements. It's the first time that I have been on a course delivered over the web, with participants across three countries, and it worked well. You certainly know your stuff with regards to the course content." 2010-08-10T12:20:37+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/20-mekon-customer-quotes/#When:12:20:37Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-creating-high-quality-consistent-content-featuring-spencer-gar/news/ 2010-07-27T13:10:13+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-webinar-creating-high-quality-consistent-content-featuring-spencer-gar/#When:13:10:13Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-learning-and-networking-opportunity-for-all-technical-communicators/news/ ISTC Southern local area group Tuesday 27th July 18:30-21:00 Raymarine offices, Marine House, 5 Harbourgate, Southampton Road, Portsmouth, PO6 4BQ Come and join the 3rd meeting of the ISTC Southern local area group. This is a FREE learning and networking opportunity for all technical communicators (NOTE you DO NOT have to be an ISTC member to attend)! Mekon's Mark Poston will be delivering a presentaion focusing on how XML-related technologies, such as XML native databases and XQuery, can be used to create more engaging deliverables for end users. Who those end users are and their different needs is discussed. Using relevant examples, Mark shows not only how these new developments provide a more efficient means of publishing content but also how content can be delivered in ways that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. In addition, Andrew Simpson from Raymarine will demonstrate, and give you the opportunity to play with, the WindchillCMS/Arbortext/DITA/AntennaHouse combination publishing system that they use for technical authoring and 16-language localization. Previous meetings have been well attended and received positive feedback. If you would like to attend please register here. 2010-07-21T10:55:52+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/free-learning-and-networking-opportunity-for-all-technical-communicators/#When:10:55:52Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/aiim/news/ Mekon were at the AIIM Roadshow last month as an integration and consulting partner of Quark. Feedback from Quark’s session "Supporting Dynamic Publishing in the Public Sector" covering subjects such as XML and eGov has been very positive. Several people came to see us afterwards to find out more about what is possible with XML, ECM and dynamic delivery and took an interest in the Mekon Content Strategy Audit to help answer such questions. Mekon are a vendor independent leading consultants focussed on increasing the effectiveness of your content creation, management and delivery. Experience with best practice in dynamic publishing best practice and all the ECM, XML, and DITA technology vendors gives Mekon a unique and un-biased insight into which technologies are suitable for specific client needs. Our customers include Parlimentary Counsel, UK Parliament and COI.       2010-07-07T13:05:02+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/aiim/#When:13:05:02Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/nldita-mark-postons-presentation-popluar-with-delegates5/news/ NLDITA 2010 in Utrecht provided an excellent event, offering high quality presentations with thought provoking content from the world of DITA. Feedback from Marks Poston’s session – DITA and Dynamic Publishing has been positive and enthusiastic with several people coming to see us afterwards to find out more about what is possible with DITA in their work environment. If you would like to discuss any of the aspects further please do not hesitate to contact us. Still looking to explore the world of DITA? Register for our free webinar Introduction to DITA. This beginners session will cover the basics of creating DITA topics, assembling topics using maps, creating relationship tables, and delivering it all to various media. DITA Training Mekon provide conceptual training in structured editing and information management techniques using the latest international standards including DITA. Find out more 2010-06-29T12:59:23+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/nldita-mark-postons-presentation-popluar-with-delegates5/#When:12:59:23Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/cancer-treatment-systems-firm-identifies-huge-reduction-in-technical-docume/news/ Elekta Estimate Efficiency Savings of up to £500,000 A Year Medical Technology Industry Is Wasting Up To Half Of Information Management Budgets, Warns Expert Clinical solutions firm Elekta has identified annual cost reductions of up to £500,000 a year in their technical documentation expenditure, following a comprehensive review of their documentation development and management processes. The human care company behind some of the world's most innovative devices for the treatment of cancer and neurological conditions recruited document management consultancy Mekon to identify and achieve efficiency savings in the way Elekta creates, manages, uses and delivers information for the large number of documents it produces. The result of Mekon’s Consulting and Implementation Process is a new Global Information Management (GIM) strategy which augments the high quality of Elekta’s documentation with keener global management, a holistic structure, and more dynamic delivery and deployment of information. The strategy is being implemented by a global project team lead by Nick Rowlands, Elekta’s Information Systems Architect, with Mekon’s assistance, and the support and sponsorship of Elekta’s senior management. Mekon worked closely with the various Elekta staff who share responsibility for creating and updating content that directly feeds technical, clinical and marketing documentation, including clinical applications specialists, product designers, field service agents, and support engineers. Mekon identified net efficiency savings of up to £500,000 per annum and enhanced Elekta’s control over the development of information, something that can inspire even greater confidence amongst the healthcare providers and patients that benefit from Elekta’s clinical advances. Mekon’s senior consultant, Noz Urbina, said that it was common for medical technology manufacturers to waste up to half of their information management budgets because they take an inefficient and unstructured approach to the way that they manage their data. Unless these firms implement a strategic approach to content management, they can be wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds or more every year, he warned. “Alongside their core product responsibilities, engineers of various types are expected to provide input into the huge amount of internal and external technical knowledge and documentation that accompany every complex diagnostic and therapeutic medical device, from MRI scanners to pacemakers,” said Urbina. The problem extends far beyond technical documentation. There are overlapping sets of operational and reference information in every organisation. Some is for internal use and reference, and some for external publication, such as marketing materials and manuals. Engineers rely on, and input information into, all such documents. If they are working for a firm that doesn’t take a strategic approach to content management, these engineers are typically wasting between 30 and 50 per cent of their content-related time on wasteful activities instead of accessing or creating valuable content. In most organizations, instead of pushing content through such an inefficient workflow, engineering content is lost or left inside teams instead of shared across the other teams or customers that need it. Urbina said, “Like Elekta, many medical technology firms operate in multiple world markets and need to publish content in multiple languages. Up to 50 per cent of internal content-related time can be taken up with performing manual tasks, such as formatting, translating, editing, and updating content across multiple outputs. What’s more, lack of automation adds extra process overheads, such as finding changes within a document or locating all the out-of-date files and performing quality assurance tasks manually. Localisation and translation costs are also often well over 50 per cent overheads that can be completely removed through application of best practices. The same infrastructure and skills upgrades that support the clinical product operational and technical maintenance information also benefit the product management, training and even marketing content.” Tom Beazley, Vice-President Services at Elekta said, “In a global, export-led market, we need tools that enable us to transform the way we deliver value to our customers. The development and deployment of information is key to delivering value to customers. The global information value chain starts with the inception of an idea, through to the development of intelligent and resource-efficient solutions that deliver positive patient outcomes, and ends with best-in-class delivery of information that healthcare providers can use with confidence to reassure their patients.” One of the major challenges facing medical technology manufacturers is information reuse and knowledge management, Urbina explains. Several different departments may be working on a particular technical document, such as a user manual, and it can be difficult to share locally-generated information with other departments, much less the outside world. This distributed base of information, held in local libraries rather than on a central, auditable, and access-controlled system, means that field experience and knowledge is rarely captured into official channels, making it much more difficult to share and reuse across a company. This can have a seriously detrimental effect on efficiency. For firms in the medical technology sector – who may employ hundreds of engineers working on numerous products and thus documents – the inefficiencies and associated costs can run into the millions of pounds. “And it’s not just about the money,” said Urbina. “There are also numerous ‘soft gains’ such as more consistent, more structured content; different navigation options; content syndication and change notifications; the ability to deliver content in customers’ desired format and browsable web-based instances of documents wherever they’re needed.” Beazley said, “Elekta’s acquisition strategy has seen incredible success and growth over the last seven years, but with this comes diverse working practices, technologies, storage and access points. Elekta was operating numerous servers, websites, document sets and knowledge bases. The diversity of processes and content that had to be managed across Elekta’s business units required a form of external consultancy, new technology and tools that were adaptable to the business, but based on a common platform and the latest industry standards to maintain document quality, enhance consistency, and deliver economies of scale.” “Mekon’s consultants worked with us to provide a cross-departmental understanding of how information management strategy can be improved and to identify potential cost savings.  They started with a day of on-site staff interviews to gather priorities, goals and a picture of the business from a process and priorities point of view. Mekon then analysed the information gathered and delivered a management-oriented presentation and report which demonstrated the benefits to the business, employees, customers, healthcare professionals and patients. This report helped us to raise staff awareness of content issues and options as well as illustrating how, why and where existing content creation, management and delivery strategies can be improved.” Urbina said, “Not many management teams offer the support and understanding like the senior management at Elekta gave its Global Information Management project.  Many struggle to let go of old processes or tools to recognise the potential and value that content and knowledge infrastructure investments have to offer. Elekta’s senior management connected with the vision, empowering Mekon’s Consulting and Implementation Process to structure the project for optimum success, meaning we were encouraged to recommend any new required technologies and facilitate change management in regard to working practices from the initial Mekon Content Strategy Audittm through to tool selection and implementation. Moving to a structure and reuse-based strategy paves the information highway to dynamic interactive publishing, intranet solutions and real cross-departmental collaboration platforms. Elekta’s employees and managers recognise the benefits of these tools to healthcare professionals and patients, not just the internal benefits to the company.” Andy Scott, Elekta’s Service Engineering & Documentation Manager, and the GIM Project Sponsor said, “Radical change to working practices can be met with resistance, and this was anticipated. However the Global Information Management program, and in particular the content management module, acted as a common denominator where everyone, irrespective of geography, language, culture and business unit has seen the collective benefits of the strategy. As Elekta will continue to grow, with Mekon we have implemented an information infrastructure that can respond to business demand just by adding new modules.” Note to editors For further editorial information or to arrange an interview please contact the Mekon press office at //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_NpkbJbmxLE').innerHTML = output; //]]> or telephone 020 7609 1900. About Elekta:  http://www.elekta.com/ Elekta is a human care company pioneering significant innovations and clinical solutions for treating cancer and brain disorders. The company develops sophisticated, state-of-the-art tools and treatment planning systems for radiation therapy and radiosurgery, as well as workflow enhancing software systems across the spectrum of cancer care. Stretching the boundaries of science and technology, providing intelligent and resource-efficient solutions that offer confidence to both healthcare providers and patients, Elekta aims to improve, prolong and even save patient lives, making the future possible today. Today, Elekta solutions in oncology and neurosurgery are used in over 5,000 hospitals globally, and every day more than 100,000 patients receive diagnosis, treatment or follow-up with the help of a solution from the Elekta Group. Elekta employs around 2,500 employees globally. The corporate headquarter is located in Stockholm, Sweden, and the company is listed on the Nordic Exchange under the ticker EKTAb. 2010-06-01T09:10:36+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/cancer-treatment-systems-firm-identifies-huge-reduction-in-technical-docume/#When:09:10:36Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-turns-20-services/news/ Here is the next instalment of Mekon's 20-things series. This time we again focus on better communicating the diversity of Mekon's work. As a vendor-independent consulting and integration firm, Mekon not only provide development and implementation, but help customers through the decision-making and solution design process.  Customers may need support narrowing down what it is they're after and what needs changing before things like customisation, training and templates even become relevant. In this newsletter's "20 Things" list you'll see services and case studies that range from ready-made solutions for standards like DITA and ASD S1000D. 1. Tool Selection Consultancy Buying a tool and getting sold a tool are different. We've helped many clients over the years make sure they're doing the former. 2. Mekon Content Strategy Audit (CSA) Approximately every other month, a new company opts to get help building their business case and formally reviewing how they collaborate on, create, manage, deliver and maintain content. Mekon have helped clients assess the technology landscape, win larger project budgets, and do it in less time than they could have alone. 3. DITA Training Did you know Mekon employs some of Europe's leading DITA trainers and can train using most leading authoring tools? 4. Mekon Project Scoping and Planning (PSP) Setting the scope correctly will be the life or death of a project. Did you know we have a standardised method for avoiding scope issues? 5. Conference Room Prototype (CRP) You test drive several cars before you buy one based on how you like. For a project with a value of 6 figures, various users (who might not yet even know to drive) you need to go even beyond that. The CRP is a structured, facilitated session to fit the right tool to solve a problem. 6. XSLT Development XSLT is the path XML goes through to become print (XSL:FO), HTML, CHM and many other formats. Here are some places we've helped clients walk the path. 7. Guided Authoring The bills and acts of parliament that govern the lives of all UK citizens are drawn up by some 80 lawyers in government using a guided authoring tools that Mekon implemented. 8. DTD Development Yes, DITA and S1000D usually negate this need, but now and then, a custom DTD can make sense. We've done the job at Eurocontrol, Oxford University Press (OUP), the Prescription Pricing Authority and more. 9. SDL Trisoft CCMS implementation SDL and Mekon both recognised the quality product offered by the Trisoft CCMS platform InfoShare. Mekon started working with Trisoft, SDL acquired them and it's now called SDL Trisoft CCMS. Here are the projects where we're working with Trisoft users. 10. XMetaL Author / Developer training and implementation Mekon has worked with XMetaL for years and employs Noz Urbina, who has trained and consulted on XMetaL solutions for the past decade. Did you know we offer evaluation and implementation support, and both Author training and Developer training. 11. Corena product implementation Corena is a recognised leader in tools to support military documentation content complying with the S1000D standard. Recently we've implemented a solution at a major Portuguese Dockyard and have also implemented Corena tools at BAE Regional Jets. 12. Forms design and development Sometimes a good-old fashioned form is the best way to control your data here are some examples of where we've 'thought inside the box'. 13. Antenna House implementation XSL:FO is the tool of choice for many projects and Antenna House XSL Formatter is one of the leading tools for rendering it. Here's some examples where we've made this high-speed work-horse run. 14. Ovidius TCToolbox implementation Manufacturers around the world rely on the component content management features of TCToolbox. Here’s a recent project where we worked together for a luxury car manufacturer. 15. Quark XML Author training and implementation XML in MS Word? Yes with a little external help MS-Word can produce XML. Key Note Research proved it. 16. SDL XPP implementation The division of UK Parliament called Hansard has to get every word of every parliamentary discussion out in print and web formats by the next morning, despite the complex pagination requirements, and the fact that the house often sits until well after midnight. Mekon implemented XPP to help them do it on time every day. 17. MarkLogic Server implementation When publishing highly complex, data-linked content but employing non-technical subject matter experts to write, how can you manage? 18. PTC Arbortext implementation Hundreds of authors around the world use Mekon's Eclipse tools on top of PTC Arbortext Editor and FrameMaker to comply with the militaries strict S1000D data standard. Mekon have recently increased our skills-base for Arbortext technologies to better support customers like LSC, Universal Engineering, TMS and Adep. 19. FrameMaker training and implementation Whether you're talking DTP or batch server-side processing of XML, Frame is still a publishing tool par excellence. Here are some recent clients where we've worked with FrameMaker. 20. MathML tool integration Complex mathematical equations have puzzled most of us for years. The national exam organisation Edexcel has some XML-based MathML tools we installed to help guide the next generation, and we've put in technology to help maths experts at Schlumberger, Edexcel, UK Parliament who already made the grade do their jobs more efficiently. 2010-05-31T12:46:14+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/mekon-turns-20-services/#When:12:46:14Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/learn-how-to-stay-ahead-at-the-aiim-roadshow/news/ The AIIM Roadshow is touring the UK from Glasgow to London. As full-fledged event on wheels, each roadshow starts with a key note speaker, followed by content solutions case study sessions providing the opportunity to learn, discuss and compare how you manage your information with best practice across the industry. In addition, the roadshow provides you with the opportunity to meet leading industry experts in the exhibition area. Visitors to the event will learn how best practice in document management, records management, ECM SharePoint and scanning, can help your organisation improve services, optimise business processes, get to grips with compliance, ease restructuring, and, last but not least, save money. Register for your free pass Learn more about the AIIM organisation Mekon at the AIIM Roadshow Mekon are Quark’s exclusive event integration partner for the AIIM Roadshow having demonstrated high capability in maximising value from Quarks XML Author. Mekon’s Paulo Newman will be available all week at the Quark booth to discuss your needs on a one to one basis. Established for 20 years, Mekon are the leading vendor independent systems integrator for intelligent content solutions. Capitalising on the Mekon Consulting & Implementation process to establish a solid business case for change, Mekon help companies introduce appropriate standards, technology and best practice. With clients identifying savings of ½ million or more pounds, Mekon consultants consistently help companies achieve maximum value of their component content management solutions and XML workflows.  Dates and cities 14 June, Glasgow – Stand 18 15 June, Bolton – Stand 3 16 June, Birmingham – Stand 21 17 June, London – Stand 32   We look forward to meeting you at a roadshow near you! 2010-05-27T11:14:22+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/learn-how-to-stay-ahead-at-the-aiim-roadshow/#When:11:14:22Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/looking-to-create-your-own-customised-processing-and-style-sheets-for-the-d/news/ Mekon’s DITA Open Toolkit Customisation Training provides the solution.  DITA Open Toolkit Customisation Training guides participants through customisation techniques and covers a selection of tools for developing them.  This intensive 2-day course comes with 1-day of follow-up online sessions and is designed to educate on the various features of: XSLT XPATH XSL:FO CSS and Ant build files With these, delegates can create customized processing and style sheets for producing HTML, HTML Help, Eclipse help and PDF output deliverables via :FO or Adobe FrameMaker. Delegates will also get an understanding of the DITA OT customization framework that will allow them to wrap-up their customization as a conformant DITA Open Toolkit plug-in. After completion of the course, participants will be able to create their own customizations for the DITA Open Toolkit and know how to package and distribute these customizations as plug-ins. DITA OT and FrameMaker Did you know that you can use the DITA OT to push documents automatically through your FrameMaker templates using the FrameMaker Publishing Adapter? Originally developed by Mekon in partnership with other leading technology vendors, the FrameMaker Publishing Adapter allows you to get value out of existing FrameMaker skills and assets, and publish top-quality PDFs without needing to learn XSL:FO.  Click here to request more information 2010-05-25T11:39:45+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/looking-to-create-your-own-customised-processing-and-style-sheets-for-the-d/#When:11:39:45Z http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/explore-the-world-of-dita-at-nldita/news/ At NLDITA 2010 (June 9-10) you can meet colleagues and other professionals in documentation and publishing. Come and explore further into the world of DITA the fastest growing XML standard for technical information, e-learning and corporate communications. NLDITA welcomes Team Leaders, Technical Communicators, Product Managers, Learning Content professionals and others who create, manage, market and publish content. Join this event and learn how to use DITA more fully and learn from industry experts including Mark Poston, Mary Speijer and Yves Barbion, who will share real life examples of the use of DITA, the use of products that enable it and the impact this will can have on your ROI. Mekon are able to offer a 200 Euro discount on the registration fee – simply quote Mekon200 when booking. Mekon staff will be available throughout the event in the exhibition area to share their mark-up technology and publishing experience on a one-to-one basis. If you would like to take this free opportunity to arrange a private meeting with Mekon and explore further into your organisation's DITA needs, email //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_I6UcltW0bv').innerHTML = output; //]]> . In addition to the main event, on 10 June NLDITA is offering interactive workshops, enabling individuals to explore further into the world of DITA. Marc Speijer will be delivering the DITA Open Toolkit Customization Workshop for those who need to create their own customized processing and style sheets for the DITA Open Toolkit. We look forward to meeting you at NLDITA! Find out more on the conference website. 2010-05-18T12:30:22+00:00 http://www.mekon.com/index.php/pages/company/explore-the-world-of-dita-at-nldita/#When:12:30:22Z