Tristan Bishop, a senior principal digital strategist at Symantec, gave a presentation on getting ready for the future of technical communication. He discussed how content has evolved from static to dynamic to social and will continue moving to mobile, personal, and continual formats. Bishop emphasized that technical communicators must embrace cloud-based delivery and building social media skills to keep up with these changes. The future may include technologies like augmented reality, brain-wave controlled devices, and universal language translation, requiring technical communicators to continually raise their skills level.

1. Techcomm 20/20
Get Vision: Get Ready
Tristan Bishop
Senior Principal Digital Strategist
TechComm 20/20 1

2. About Symantec
• We help secure and manage your information-driven world.
• We protect against risks wherever information is used or stored.
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3. • Social Media strategist within
Chief Technology Office
• Drives efficient delivery of
effective content
• Intently increasing customer
Tristan David Bishop,
Sr. Prin. Digital Strategist access to crucial content
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4. Agenda
1 Get Real
2 Get Vision
3 Get Knowledge
4 Get Ready
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5. Get Real
It's not denial: I'm just selective about the reality I accept.
Bill Watterson
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6. This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings
to be seriously considered as a means of
communication.
Western Union, Internal Memo, 1876
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7. Television won’t be able to hold on …
People will soon get tired of staring at a
plywood box every night.
Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946
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8. Baloney… The truth is no online database
will replace your daily newspaper.
Clifford Stoll, Newsweek, 1995
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9. There's no chance that the iPhone is
going to get any significant market share.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, 2007
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10. Get Vision
Social Media is the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution.
Erik Qualman, Author, Socionomics
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11. The Static Content Era
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12. The Dynamic Content Era
• The web = real-time content
– Maps are dynamic
– Addresses are dynamic
– News is dynamic
– Is your TechComm be dynamic?
• In 2007, Symantec discovered
customers were 500% more
likely to search the web than to
locate official manuals
• Today, 75% begin quest for
product help via search engine!
Crafting Clarity 12

13. The Social Content Era
• Social Network usage
steadily increasing in
every demographic
• 60% of social network
users follow brands
• 40% of the Fortune
Global 100 use Twitter
for customer service
Shared Engineering Services 13

14. Social Media: Connects Answers to Relationships
Research and Conversation have MERGED!
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15. Social Content Sharing
Nearly 30% of ALL social media users share “How-To & Instructional” content
Source: http://danzarella.com
Shared Engineering Services 15

16. Get Knowledge
There’s a lot more technology ahead of us than behind us.
Tim O’Reilly, STC Summit 2011
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17. 2009: Cranial Control
• 2009: Toyota debuts electric wheelchair control via brain waves
• 2010: Honda debuts humanoid robot control via brain waves
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18. 2010: Augmented Reality
• Information about one’s field of view overlaid onto real world
• Combines online data with physical experiences
• Massive potential for future content authoring
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19. 2011: Augmented Identity
• Recognizr, by Research in Motion (RIM) for Android phone
• Combines 3D facial recognition and cloud-based social search
• Know WHO you're looking at, before you say “Hi”
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20. 2012: Augmented Vision
• Glasses beam images directly to retinas, a hovering virtual display
• Information in the background about who and what we're looking at.
• Police testing sunglasses which scan 400 faces/second from 50 yards,
to identify known criminal’s face within a crowd of people.
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21. 2020: Cranial Surfing?
• By the year 2020, users will open documents and surf the Web
using nothing more than their brain waves.” - Dean Pomerleau,
Intel Corporation
• Memory could be instantaneously aided by INTERNET
information
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22. 2020: Cranial Communication?
• Texting by thought power via sensor-mounted headset?
• Computational Telepathy between humans?
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23. Get Ready
During the next decade, Knowledge Workers will have to raise the bar.
Fast Company , Moving towards 2020
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24. Cloud-Based Authoring
1. Contribute content
from any location
2. Web form enforces
source structure
3. Integrated QA toolset
to optimize content as
it’s written
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25. Cloud-Based Tech Review
1. Web-based, granular
review process
2. Workflow allows SME
suggestions or “sign-off”
3. Integrated author
approvals, with instant
XML source updates
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26. Cloud-Based Translation
1. Author selects topic
and language and
initiates workflow
2. MT systems handle
majority of the
translation load
3. Bilingual human
receives notifications
to approve or adjust
translations
By 2020, universal language translation will be commonplace in every device.
(Source: Cisco IBSG, 2009)
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27. Automatic SEO Optimization
1. Systematic metadata
application
2. Outputs are optimized
for media-specific SEO
3. Extract process
generates sitemap
files, as needed
The world’s data will increase six fold in each of the next two years, while corporate
data will grow fiftyfold. (Source: Technorati)
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28. Cloud-based Publishing
1. Author selects
topics, languages,
output formats and
schedule
2. System builds and
delivers content
3. Modular addition of
new consumption
endpoints
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29. Topic-Based Metrics
1. Systems track user
access to each piece
of content (bit.ly+)
2. Automatic reports on
who accessed
content, when, from
where, and on what
device
3. Comment
mechanisms on each
piece of content,
requesting user
feedback and routing
input to author
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30. Social Sharing
1. Social sharing capabilities
for all generated output
2. Any reader can share your
content with their social
graph via THEIR preferred
channel
3. Branded TechComm social
media accounts for content
promotion
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31. Mobile Administration
1. Mobile access to cloud
based administration
2. Author, review,
translate, schedule,
publish or share from
any endpoint
3. Adjust and republish
content in real-time,
from anywhere
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32. Conclusions
1. A financial interest in the status quo often results in denial
2. Content has moved from static to dynamic to social
3. The future of content is mobile, personal and continual
4. As an industry, TechComm must embrace cloud delivery
5. As an individual, you must invest in building social media skills
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33. Thank you!
Tristan Bishop
Tristan_Bishop@Symantec.com
Twitter.com/@KnowledgeBishop
Copyright © 2011 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in
the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
This document is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advertising. All warranties relating to the information in this document, either express or implied,
are disclaimed to the maximum extent allowed by law. The information in this document is subject to change without notice.
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