5 Reasons Why Your UX Strategy is Incomplete

August 10th, 2011 | | Uncategorized

We spend so much time on our product interface, website user experience, A/B testing colors on landing pages, aligning the products guys with the design and usability folks – so it might come as a shock to hear you still aren’t doing enough when it comes to UX. So what else is there? Product manuals.

Think about it, when was the last time you put your product manuals through a usability test? It’s a no-brainer why UX is so important, so why aren’t we giving our product manuals more thought? Just as your website needs love, so do your product manuals. Those little manuals can have a profound effect on your bottom line. Maybe it’s hard to convince your design or product marketing team or maybe you just had no idea how important your product manuals (Aaron Fulkerson talks more about that in Forbes) are to your company’s success. Whatever the reason, it’s time to take your product manuals through a UX overhaul. Still not convinced? Here are 5 reasons why you need to stop everything and launch a UX strategy for your product manuals today.

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The Datacard Group: Another Happy MindTouch Customer

October 15th, 2010 | | content strategy, Customer, Enterprise 2.0

One of the awesome parts of my job is talking to our repeat customers. Customer loyalty is critical to any company’s growth, and something that MindTouch is lucky enough to enjoy, thanks to our innovative products and amazing customer service. This week I got a chance to catch up with the Datacard Group, a $400 million company based in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

5084200079_357abd0538_o[1] Like MindTouch, DataCard considers collaboration a critical part of their business. Datacard collaborates with their customers to create secure financial card programs and government ID initiatives.  A globally distributed company, the Datacard Group has been a MindTouch customer for quite a while. In fact, the first MindTouch product they deployed was the MindTouch DekiBox, a hardware appliance we sold very early on in our company’s history. Today, they use our virtual machine installation, a low-touch, high performance software virtual appliance.

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Enterprise Technology Buyers: Checklist 2.0

October 12th, 2010 | | content strategy, Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise technology buyers are some of the most educated buyer types in the marketplace today. I don’t necessarily mean well-educated in terms of schooling, but more so in terms of how much they educate themselves when researching the technology they’re asked to buy on behalf of their company.

When I look at our sales wins here at MindTouch, I check out the individual opportunity records to see what our prospects “consumed” from MindTouch on their way to becoming a customer. 2 years ago, downloading a trial version of the product and reading a case study might have been good enough to move forward with a purchase – today, that’s barely the tip of the iceberg.

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Are Content Strategists the Next Corporate Rock Stars?

October 4th, 2010 | | Awards and Press, Conferences, content strategy

Content Strategy is an emerging field with immense possibilities for business. Similar to its Marketing cousin, content strategy seeks to position the right content with the right user experience at the right time for its intended audience. The difference however, is that content strategy is less about advertising and more about revealing your product’s story. It’s also about engagement and collaboration with potential buyers of your product.

Recently, I presented the following deck at LavaCon 2010 to illustrate the similarities between the successful career of the Rolling Stones and to future Content Strategists. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from following the Stones career.

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And That’s a Wrap: LavaCon 2010

October 2nd, 2010 | | Conferences, content strategy, Enterprise 2.0, Most Influential

Thanks to Jack Molisani and the entire LavaCon team for an amazing conference this year. A quick scan of the #lavacon hashtag will give you an idea of how well the conference was received.

If you weren’t able to attend, you missed some great presentations by the leading content strategists and marketers in the industry today. You also missed MindTouch naming the 25 Most Influential Content Strategists, an impartial ranking and recognition of the people who are leading the way in content strategy.

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Collaboration, in Context

August 25th, 2010 | | content strategy, Enterprise 2.0

Barb Mosher at CMSWire recently asked me to revisit an open-editorial I wrote some time ago for OStatic on the “Future of Collaborative Networks”. Considering I wrote that piece over a year ago, I flinched a little as I loaded the page  – wondering how far off base I was going to be with what the reality is today. Thankfully, I don’t think I was too far off from what is actually happening in the market we’re currently in. (If you do, please, shoot me a note or comment below, I’d love to have the conversation!)

While the idea of ‘social business’ has definitely helped educate the market on Enterprise 2.0 capabilities, an amazing opportunity still presents itself for E20 to deliver even greater value. For that to happen, however, requires a considerable amount of what Barb herself calls “Collaboration in Context”.

Here’s a link to my follow up piece in CMSWire. Let me know what you think, either via comments below or on the article’s comments system.

London Calling, Technical Communicators

August 24th, 2010 | | Uncategorized

In just a little under 3 weeks – September 9th, to be exact  - MindTouch will be hosting our European Launch Event in London to formally bring MindTouch Technical Communications Suite across the pond.  MindTouch TCS, the Killer App for strategic content, has already been met with considerable market enthusiasm throughout North America and we’re excited to launch our newest offering to our European customers and partners.

Register Here for the Event

Already, we’re expecting a full house at the event, where we’ll be presenting the “Future of Strategic Content”.  This is a must-attend event for anyone interested in learning how documentation can become a key strategic driver for increased revenue, decreased support costs and more effective community and brand building.  In addition to our presentation, we’ll also be showcasing how the most innovative companies author, publish and curate their online documentation.

This all leads to the centerpiece of the day’s discussions – how MindTouch TCS enables our customers and partners to deliver the industry’s first “social documentation” solution to their users and communities.    Like I said, this is a must-attend event for anyone responsible for their company’s content strategy.

As an added bonus, we are pleased to announce that Ellis Pratt, from Cherryleaf will be one of our featured speakers.  As you might recall, Ellis was recently named one of the – #5 to be exact – Most Influential Technical Communicators by MindTouch.  Ellis will be presenting the “Seven Key Challenges Technical Publications Departments Face Today”.

I hope to see you there!

Register Here for the Event

Flexibility is Key

June 28th, 2010 | | Enterprise 2.0

So many times we are surprised at the creative ways that customers are building value with MindTouch.  As a robust flexible application platform, MindTouch lends itself to extensive customization easily, allowing users to quickly and easy create powerful applications.

As you may have seen in previous posts, a survey of our users revealed that the majority of MindTouch customers are using MindTouch to create the next generation of collaborative tech support documentation.  This phenomenon arose organically, with users naturally gravitating towards the flexibility of MindTouch in creating and editing technical communications.

The key in all of these use cases is the flexibility of the MindTouch platform.

Today’s solutions require flexible platforms that enable structure to emerge, rather than forcing structure on your customers and employees. It is an important distinction that can make or break a successful deployment.

Our latest release, MindTouch Technical Communications Suite focuses on delivering the features most requested by technical communicators.  When we looked at how technical communicators are using MindTouch, we saw some great developments in the areas of Authoring, Discovering, and Curating information. It is in these areas that we have focused many of our new features in MindTouch TCS.  From our new search engine to powerful curation tools, we’ve added in the features that technical communicators need to quickly create and manage quality documentation sourced from internal and external sources.

The Evolution of Technical Communication

June 23rd, 2010 | | Enterprise 2.0

As engineers, we are often reluctant communicators.  I remember my first job out of college, working in the electrical engineering R&D dept at a now-defunct Fortune 500 company. It is safe to say that “writing the manuals” was usually the last item on the list of tasks for almost every project;  nobody wanted to do it, but being the newest person there, it was a task that usually fell to me.  A decade ago, technical communication was done with very rudimentary tools, using Word or Robohelp, and distributing documentation updates via CD-ROM.

The growth of technical communication industry is testament to the fact that technical writing is an art all to itself.  An outgrowth of what was once only thought of as “manual writing”, technical communication has evolved over the past few years into a much more social, collaborative process.  The advent, and staggering growth, of social collaborative technology has changed the world of technical communication forever.  Whereas before technical writing was thought of as more of an afterthought, it now sits front and center in the interface between a company and their customers; talk about a crucial positioning!

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MindTouch Selected for Innovation Summit at the Open World Forum

September 18th, 2009 | | Awards and Press

MindTouch has been selected as a finalist in the 2009 Open World Forum Innovation Summit and Award in Paris France on October ois12nd, 2009.  Why is this a big deal?  Well mostly because we were selected from  a large pool of applicants by our peers, a panel of open source experts and luminaries elected MindTouch as a one of the most innovative companies in the open source world.  I think everyone would agree that it is awesome to get recognition by ones own peers, especailly in a space where there is consistently new and exciting technology coming out.

MindTouch was selected on the strength of its business, including the innovative nature of its product, the strength of its management team, and the incredible job it has done in such a short time to build such a great (and large) user community and market share.  I think this bodes well for all the people out there who have made the investment in MindTouch, as well as all  others who are considering how to make their leap into collaboration (the answer of course is MindTouch.)  This validates MindTouch’s position as a leader in the Enterprise Collaboration segment, per the   Forrester Wave Report on Collaboration.

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