Our latest webinar, “Creating Exceptional Customer Experiences Starts With Managing Terminology” was a discussion between Scott Abel and Val Swisher, CEO of Content Rules, about the importance of managing terminology. Attendees learned what terminology is, why it’s important to manage it, and how you can quickly get started. Attendees discovered why manual approaches to managing terminology (term lists, word lists, and spreadsheets) don’t work and why using software tools designed to effectively and efficiently manage terminology are better suited for the job.
The webinar was recorded in full (60 minutes) and is available below. In addition to the recording, there were a handful of questions asked by the live audience that were unable to be answered during the webinar. I enlisted Val to help answer them. You can find them below. Thank you again to Val and Scott for an insightful webinar.
Live Audience Questions:
Q: How does this app stack up to AuthorAssistant and other apps that automate style guides?
A: Our software has gone head-to-head with the SDL Global Authoring Management System (GAMS), formerly known as AuthorAssistant, many times. While both systems are used to improve the quality of source content, they are different in a number of significant ways:
- ContentRules IQ comes with 94 standard best practice writing rules. GAMS ships with a little more than a dozen rules.
- ContentRules IQ runs as a very simple, easy to use plug to your standard authoring environment. In other words, if I am accustomed to using MS Word, nothing changes for me. Same with any of the plug-ins (Word, FrameMaker, Arbortext, Xmetal, and more). Using GAMS, the editing of the content happens in a separate interface, so you have to interrupt your workflow and use a new application.
- GAMS does not allow for rule customization. The Acrolinx IX server engine is completely configurable. That is, we can customize the rules to exactly fit your corporate usage style guide.
Q: What is the cost of this app compared to “regular” Acrolinx, which is so expensive that many companies can’t afford it?
A: ContentRules IQ was designed to be affordable. You can find pricing information on our website: http://www.contentrules.com/products/pricing/
Q: What type of security is provided for highly sensitive proprietary information when using this cloud technology?
A: We have a number of layers of security:
- The server does not store any of your data. Think of it like a fax machine. It reads in your content, processes it, and then deletes the content. Your content is never stored on the server.
- Your connection to the ContentRules IQ server is over a secured https: connection
- Each customer on a ContentRules IQ server has a separate instance of the server software, each with its own IP address. It is not possible for customers to see each other’s terminology or rule sets.
- Only Content Rules technical staff has access the server file system.
Q: Can the system evaluate content voice?
A: No. ContentRules IQ only work on written content.
Q: Does ContentRules IQ run on Oracle?
A: I’m not sure I understand the question. ContentRules IQ operates within an authoring environment. For example, if you are creating content using Arbortext, you would use the Arbortext plug-in. If you are creating content using MS Word, you would use the Word plug-in. Oracle is not an authoring environment. (I hope this answers the question.)
Q: What about terminology harvesting, synonyms, and role in internet search?
A: We can absolutely harvest terminology. This is a professional service that we provide as an adjunct to the purchase of the software. To harvest terminology, we take a very large quantity of your content and run it through a special process. This process literally pulls the terms from your content and then aggregates the terms. By aggregating the terms, you can see all of the term variants (different ways you said the same term) and you can decide which of the variants is preferred, which are admitted, and which are deprecated.
Q: How does this fit in with tools for checking language like ASD-STE100?
A: There is an ASD-STE100 rule set available for ContentRules IQ.
Q: There are real benefits to controlled language/terminology. But what about marketing writers/CMO’s who are trying to express themselves creatively? Can you talk to that “concern”?
A: Finding the right balance between controlled terminology and creativity in the marketing arena can be a very difficult task. I spoke about this topic at length for the Social Media Explorer. Here is a link to an article that addresses this particular issue:
Q: How do you see terminology management working with community-generated content?
A: I think user-generated content (UGC) is the next big frontier for managing content quality. So much content is being created by the user community now that many companies are relying on community members to be the front line of support and technical help on the internet. UGC poses real challenges for managing terminology and for managing content quality. Currently, many companies (including some of my large clients) have decided to not manage content generated by the community. They have taken the stance that UGC quality is “good enough” – whatever that means. And, for now, it appears to be working well-enough for them. At least, they aren’t actively looking for answers on how to solve the problem.
But, UGC quality is an even bigger problem when we are trying to use machine translation to automatically translate the content into multiple languages. The problems exponentiate as you add people and languages. Poor quality content cannot be translated into anything meaningful. So, the question is, “How do we control the terminology of UGC so that it is “good enough” to be translated?”
I don’t have the answer yet. But I think that it is going to take a combination of enhanced automation and controlled workflow à in other words, we will need to better control the process by which users add content, so that we can monitor terminology and quality in a self-regulated fashion. This is a topic that I am extremely interested in and will be watching as the industry continues to move forward.
Interested in attending our next webinar?
Tune in with Scott Abel and Jeffrey Tarter this Friday, May 20, 2011, in “Lessons from the Masters: Trends You Need to Know for Your Next Web Support Site Makeover”. Sign up Now!
