Newsletter May 2024
A colorful spring bouquet: iiRDS from DITA, AI news and events
You've probably already read it or even downloaded it? The iiRDS Consortium has released a plugin for the DITA Open Toolkit. It was developed by Empolis in collaboration with parson. The plugin allows you to create iiRDS packages from DITA-XML. This means that any authoring solution that uses DITA-OT for publishing can now also provide iiRDS output.
Read more about this in the first topic of our newsletter.
Our topics
- Learn more about the new DITA-OT plugin for iiRDS
- Interesting events for technical communication
- The new Machinery Regulation
- Can software developers and technical communicators write together?
- New careers in technical communication: UX writing
- Artificial Intelligence for technical documentation – new releases
- News from parson: Selected customer projects, a new partner and TISAX® certification
Learn more about the new DITA-OT plugin for iiRDS
The free plugin from the iiRDS Consortium is easy to use and offers DITA users a seamless path to iiRDS implementation. It can also be easily customized to meet the needs of your project.
Mark Schubert and Martin Kreutzer (Empolis) present the DITA-OT plugin in the latest issue of tcworld magazine. Read the article
Ulrike Parson and Marion Knebel present the plugin in a webinar hosted by the Society for Technical Communication, New England Chapter.
A more technical approach provides Marion Knebel in her presentation at DITA-OT Day 2024 in February: "Publishing from DITA with iiRDS".
Martin Fiebig summarizes the most important information about the plugin in the parson blog. Read more
Interesting events for technical communication
tekom spring conference 2024 – a review
The tekom spring conference 2024 took place in beautiful Freiburg, Germany. Together with Patrick McCrae (LangTec), Helle Hannken-Illjes, technical communicator at parson, presented the talk "Hammer or Swiss Army Knife? Which AI method makes the most sense where?" (translated from German)
You can also read Helle's impressions of the tekom spring conference in the parson blog.
gdslive 2024
On June 12, 2024, gdslive will present the latest trends and topics in the field of technical communication and information management.
We will be there with a presentation:
Prompt Engineering - Wie sag ich's der KI? (Prompt Engineering – How do I tell AI?)
Helle Hannken-Illjes and Lukas Jetzig
Adobe DITAWORLD 2024
parson is once again a Gold Sponsor of Adobe DITAWORLD. Together with Sarah O'Keefe and Stefan Gentz, Ulrike Parson will discuss the topic "Navigating the AI Frontier - Transforming Knowledge Management and Documentation".
There will also be plenty of news about AI support in Adobe AEM Guides. The event is free and takes place online.
Learn more about Adobe DITAWORLD and watch videos of parson's presentations on our website.
Empolis Exchange 2024
Are you ready to see the future of artificial intelligence? Our partner Empolis Information Management GmbH will present an exciting turning point at the Empolis Exchange 2024 on June 5, 2024. The event will cover not only proven AI technologies, but also the latest achievements: GenAI, combined with established AI approaches. We look forward to it.
Attendance at the Empolis Exchange is free of charge. Go to registration
The new Machinery Regulation
From January 2027, the new Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 will apply. Some changes concern the structure of the regulation, others the content. However, the new Machinery Regulation also introduces new topics. The most interesting ones are Artificial Intelligence, (cyber)safety and changes to the documentation format.
In her blog post, Mette Lilienthal discusses the changes and their impact on technical documentation. She also answers a few questions. Read the blog post
Can software developers and technical communicators write together?
Software developers and technical communicators often write documentation separately. The Siemens divison "Digital Industries, Factory Automation and Information Management" wants to establish an editorial process for joint documentation. Among other things, the software developers are to create their part of the documentation using the docs-as-code method. parson has evaluated Siemens' proof of concept. To the project reference
We also recommend reading our knowledge article "Docs-as-code for technical documentation" on this topic. Read the article
New careers in technical communication: UX writing
UX writers are experts at writing intuitive, clear, and user-friendly text. They improve the interaction between users and a digital application. Good UX writing ensures that interaction with digital products is smooth, enjoyable, and efficient.
UX writers at parson also help improve texts for digital products so that they guide users in the best possible way and can be efficiently translated into different languages. More about UX writing by parson
Artificial Intelligence for technical documentation – new releases
AI Positron Assistant from Oxygen 2.0
Released April 23, 2024
The Oxygen AI Positron Assistant add-on is a powerful tool that helps users increase their productivity by providing support for using AI-generated content. Version 2.0 adds support for Vision models, allowing the AI to also read and interpret images and thus supporting more use cases. The new Generate Documentation Draftaction makes it possible for users to provide instructions and images to help the AI engine create a draft DITA topic. Furthermore, this version also introduces an action that enables users to simply update the images from a topic and have the AI analyze the images and propose content updates. Learn more
Empolis Buddy
Released April 16, 2024
Empolis Buddy is a chatbot that uses AI technologies such as knowledge graphs and generative AI to deliver knowledge. The Buddy leverages the organization's knowledge to provide confident answers. Read more
News from parson: Selected customer projects, a new partner and TISAX® certification
Delivering digital product information: parson creates iiRDS metadata model for Danfoss
... parson was our partner in developing and implementing an iiRDS based metadata model in our new CCMS. We have enjoyed the collaboration and have learned a lot as a team and the results are more than convincing. ...
Danfoss Drives wanted to provide its product information dynamically in the future. As a global supplier of frequency converters, digital transformation is crucial for Danfoss. We supported Danfoss in this process: First, we developed a metadata model based on iiRDS and then created a concept for its implementation in MadCap IXIA CCMS. Read the project reference
Better DITA-XML environment for proALPHA
For the second time, we were able to support the software provider proALPHA, this time with our DITA-XML expertise. proALPHA wanted to improve its DITA-XML implementation; we helped. Read the project reference
Partnership with Fluid Topics
We are pleased to announce the partnership with the French company Antidot (Fluid Topics). Antidot's content delivery platform Fluid Topics unifies multiple content sources to dynamically deliver personalized content across multiple channels using artificial intelligence. Read the news
Component Content Alliance Membership
We are a member of the Component Content Alliance – a meeting place for professionals interested in the dynamic areas of component-based content and structured content creation. Together, we look for ways to increase operational efficiency, improve customer experience, and enhance service and support. Learn more about content management and intelligent information at the Component Content Alliance website.
All parson partnerships and memberships
TISAX® certificate for comprehensive information security
As a service provider, we understand that data is our customers' most valuable asset and that the trust of our customers and partners is essential for a successful business relationship. Therefore, we do everything in our power to handle data with the utmost care and security. Learn more