About

DITAWriter is Keith Schengili-Roberts. Formerly the manager of a documentation and localization team within the graphics engineering group at AMD, I helped bring my team of technical writers into the bright new world of DITA way back in 2006. Prior to becoming manager, I worked as an Information Architect (or really, “Documentation Architect“), redesigning the content deliverables and moving the group from an unstructured FrameMaker-based toolchain to one that uses a DITA Content Management System (in this case, IXIASOFT‘s DITA CMS).

It’s funny how sometimes things come full circle, as I have recently (as of 2021) returned to work at AMD as a Senior Technical Manager for Technical Documentation for a business unit specializing in computational GPUs. Much of my current work centers around replacing the CCMSs from my previous time there and helping mentor a new generation of technical writers on my team.

Before this, I have been acting either as a consultant in the CCMS space and also happily spent several working at IXIASOFT as a DITA Specialist, doing Information Architect work on behalf of their clients and doing presentations at conferences all over the world. Prior to working at IXIASOFT, I worked as a DITA consultant for the U.K. firm Mekon, doing IA work and consulting for the likes of ARM, Schlumberger, eBay Deutschland, and Infineon. A terrific company, and if you are looking for an independent consulting firm with deep knowledge of DITA in Europe, look no further.

I am interested in learning more about DITA, particularly in how other people and firms use it. I started this blog to give me a forum to share my own views and experiences, as well as those of other people I have met who bring their working knowledge from other domains.

If you want to contact me, email me at: keith@ditawriter.com.

15 thoughts on “About

  1. Hi There,

    Just wanted to let you know that my team at BTI Systems uses DITA to develop technical documentation. Please add us to your list.

    Great initiative, by the way. I have been curious about how many companies are using DITA. I wish DITA was more widely used outside of technical documentation though… I would like to easily leverage content from Marketing and other groups within our company and vice-versa, but our content is somewhat segregated in our CMS.

    Thanks in advance,
    –T

  2. Our company (Interactive Intelligence, Inc.) is listed because we mentioned DITA in a job posting. I added that reference to DITA as “a plus” qualification for the first time a few months ago. The reason is because we decided to move toward adopting DITA and a CMS here, but we are still in the planning and proposal stage. I can’t say we are using DITA yet, but we hope to be some time this year.

    1. I have duly removed Interactive Intelligence from the “Companies Using DITA” listing. If you end up using DITA in your future documentation processes, please let me know and I will add it back.

      Thank you!

  3. Keith:

    JoAnn Hackos mentioned to me that you might be willing to say a few words on your blog about our upcoming DITA Rockstar webinar, DITA and Minimalism, which she is presenting.

    You can learn more about her talk, and the entire series here:

    http://marketing.easydita.com/acton/media/2645/dita-rockstar-summer-camp-joann-hackos—dita-and-minimalism

    The link where people can register for the webinar is: http://ow.ly/lGHIl

    Let me or JoAnn know if you have any questions about this.

    Regards,

    Steve

    1. Hello there:

      There are a lot of educational resources available for people like yourself wanting to learn about DITA. I’d recommend taking a look at my recently updated listing of DITA-related videos and look for the “DITA Quick Start for Authors” videos, which are good.

      I also find that people learn best when they have a chance to “play” with the DITA Toolkit, which can be found here. Install it, read the instructions and start playing around with the example code provided to help you get a handle on how the mechanics work.

      Last but not least, I’d recommend taking a look at the growing list of books available on the subject and picking up one of them to help you get started.

      Your simple question has the makings of a future article — I may end up expanding on this answer, so please check back for a possible article on the subject.

      Hope that helps!

      1. Thank for your great support. The company I am working is trying to have a demo of DITA system. It is good to know something first. Thanks again!

      2. Hello ditawriter

        youtube is blocked here in China, I can not watch the video of “DITA Quick Start for Authors Part I”. do you have others methods that I can watch the video?

        Thanks

        1. I am afraid I have no suggestions on how you can get around the “Great Firewall” in China. I know your frustration, from having tried to access YouTube while over there on business.

          I don’t know if Vimeo is blocked in China; you might want to check to see if the links to the videos on that website are valid. There are also a few company-hosted videos in the list, such as a few from oXygen, Adobe and one or two other manufacturers which I hope would not be blocked to you.

          Another upcoming project for me is to list the DITA-related slide-decks on http://www.slideshare.net/. One you might want to start with is DITA Quick Start Webinar Series: Getting Started with the DITA Open Toolkit by Adena Frazer. Hopefully Slide-share.net is not blocked in China!

  4. Hello Ditawriter,

    Can you share the type of work a Dita consultant to do? If I want to be a Dita consultant, what kind of technology should I learn?

    I use oxygen to create tehcnial documentation, create dita ot plugin for pdf format, start to learn xml and xslt now.

    Thanks for sharing!

    br
    Lisa

    1. Typically a DITA consultant may have several roles to play. They may be called upon to help validate a Request for Information on behalf of a client to ensure they get the best CCMS/other tools that they need. Or a DITA consultant might play more of an Information Architect/Content Strategy role, helping to guide an initial implementation of DITA content within a tech docs organization. They might also specialize in XSL (something I would recommend) in order to tweak the layout of content for various output formats. For other ideas, take a look at the DITA Consultants page at: https://www.ditawriter.com/dita-consultants-listing/. Cheers!

  5. Hello Ketih,

    I was wondering if you have some tips about DITA conversions in a Hardware documentation world. I work for a Semiconductor company as well. I would like to discuss some of our deliverable with you. How can I discuss this further with you? Please advise.

    Thanks,
    Priya

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Protected with IP Blacklist CloudIP Blacklist Cloud

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.