RE: Best Practice...Reuse Content

Subject: RE: Best Practice...Reuse Content
From: "Porrello, Leonard" <lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com>
To: Ã TechwriterList <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 21:23:10 +0000

Before we get to "best practices prescribed by experts," how about we start with common sense.

Are all three knowledgebases hosted by the same provider? If not, why not? Even if two-thirds of the information is exclusive to a given region, why not have one knowledgebase that users can filter by region (through a "Choose Your Region" splash screen for example)? If having a local URL is important, that could be done easily enough with a redirect.

Having only one knowledgebase would facilitate reuse and, arguably, simplify management and, therefore, reduce the cost of management. Such an approach would also lend itself to more consistent use of standards and, therefore, better and more uniform information.


--- On Tue, 2/1/11, John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

From: John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com>
Subject: Best Practice...Reuse Content
To: "List,Ã Techwriter" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tuesday, February 1, 2011, 5:00 PM

Humor me for a minute

I'm now a Knowledgebase analyst with an opportunity to present a case
to rearchitect my company's extrernal knowledgebase that is used for
customer self-help support.

Understand that to do what I'm asking, there will be changes at the
code level, so I need to build a pretty strong case.

We currently have three regional knowledgebases; US customers,
Canadian customers, and UK customers.

Based on an analysis that I recently performed, 29% of the content is
almost identically replicated in all three regions. Let me say that
again. 29% of the content appears pretty much the same in three
regions. So, if it takes 50 words to describe something, we have 150
words doing it; 50 in each region.

I've made a recommendation that we have one pirce of content, written
once and shared by the three regions. Pretty simple, huh?

You and I know the benefits to this...that is not my question and I
have some interest in this concept from some levels in this company
.However, the person I have to convince is pretty high up on the
ladder and her hot buttons are "best practices prescribed by experts"

Therefore, I'm interested in material that backs me up on the premise
that there shouldn't be the same content written more than once,
preferably from people with name recogintion.
--
John Posada
Senior Analyst â Knowledge Management
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Follow-Ups:

References:
Best Practice...Reuse Content: From: John Posada
Re: Best Practice...Reuse Content: From: Keith Hood

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