I had the pleasure of seeing a fantastic story from Dell at this year's SDL Innovate conference, presented by MaryLee Grant. Here's the lowdown of the story...

Dell met their Return on Investment (ROI) goals in less a year by migrating to structured content using DITA, SDL Trisoft and SDL Global Authoring Management System (Global AMS), according to MaryLee Grant, Director, Information Development.

Those who have signed up for Innovate 2012 can look forward to Greg Oxton’s highly anticipated innovation workshop on day 2 of the March 5th-6th event. Greg brings his knowledge from the Consortium for Service Innovation, a non-profit alliance of organizations focused on innovation for customer interaction.

During the interactive workshop, attendees will delve deeper into what innovation is and how one masters it. Innovation is accepted as being an important ingredient for a successful and sustainable business, and Greg will share great tips on how to create an innovative environment.

Greg specializes in customer service and organizational development so his session will cover key topics such as:

• Alignment; to a purpose and values
• Tolerance for discovery; a passion for learning
• Collaboration; facilitating interactions to improve relevance and reach
• Customer presence; integrating customers into the business
• Knowledge management; capturing, sharing and improving our collective knowledge

If you haven’t signed up for Innovate 2012 yet, it’s not too late to hear Greg, and dozens of other fantastic speakers, share their insight on customer engagement, content management and industry best practices. Don’t miss out on a fantastic opportunity!

Register today at: http://www.sdl.com/en/sites/innovate2012/

With so many conferences and expos happening each month, it is easy for even the largest events to get lost within the pages of one’s calendar. If you haven’t had a chance to register for Innovate 2012 in Santa Clara next week, there is still time! We have lined up an impressive selection of speakers that will be presenting on science innovation, customer engagement, and industry best practices.

The first morning will open up with Mike Walsh, bestselling author of FUTURETAINMENT, presenting on the latest technologies, global trends, and case studies regarding customer relationships. The rest of day one is packed with great customer presentations and panel sessions. Another “can’t miss” session comes at the end of the day with an executive advisory panel discussing insight into global customer engagement. Executives from SDL, Dell, HP, Intel and Microsoft will be offering their expertise on strategies and tools to implement in 2012 to build lasting relationships with customers.

If you are looking for an interactive experience, be sure to check out the Ask the Experts session on March 6th. SDL’s Technology experts will be available for 1-on-1 meetings with attendees to answer questions on technical product information, discuss best practices and offer product demos. This is a unique opportunity not to be missed!

The Innovate conference is less than one week away! Don’t miss your chance to hear incredibly talented speakers, network with industry professionals and learn what SDL has planned for a fantastic 2012.

Register today at: http://www.sdl.com/en/sites/innovate2012/

Last week I was lucky enough to attend TOC 2012 with my colleague, Jon Parsons. We weren’t there to sell anything, so no manning of booths or promiscuous business card swapping was required. Instead we got to listen to a lot of fascinating speakers and converse with a lot of people in the publishing on how they’re coping with the disruption of digital content in their industry. Of course, digital content is nothing new. Music, movies, and television have all begun the transition, but for a long time, newspapers, magazines, and books were exempt. The beginning of this change dates back to the very introduction of the internet, but with the advent of ebook readers, smart mobile devices, and high resolution tablets the pace is now quickening rapidly. 

Yesterday (Monday) it was official, Alterian have become a very welcome part of SDL. This is personally very exciting for me, as I am an Alterian alumnus. But more importantly, it elevates our company’s ability to meet the contemporary needs of our customers; to engage with their customers. 

People use the term ‘game changer’ quite a lot, but on our 20 year anniversary of being founded as Software Documentation Localization (SDL), this is a clear signal of intent to be at the vanguard of what global information management means today. We are continuing on the journey to serve the digital consumer that included the acquisition of Tridion to form our WCM solutions division in 2007.  

Those contemporary information management requirements are described by various acronyms, but I think we are settling on Customer Experience Management (CXM) and this acquisition brings together a family of products that can address those needs. 

In saying that I don’t mean some artificial spreadsheet or graph laid out by an analyst (as much as I respect them) - I mean it responds to real needs I am hearing from our customers today. 

Real people, in large, sophisticated organizations that are looking for how they systemize social engagement, how they reach their customers with a high degree of relevance, across multiple channels and in multiple languages.

Here are my top 3 of things top like about having Alterian in the fold:

1. The combination of language and social. This is really exciting, understanding the sentiment of what is being said out there is the science of social media monitoring and this starts with the language that is being spoken. 

2. Actionable insights. The combination of understanding your audience through observing behavior, social media monitoring and transactions - and then being able to address the audience across multiple channels. It’s a message I carried when I was at Alterian and is even more powerful when combined with componentized, structured content management and language.  

3. Expertise not just technology.  After I left Alterian, they acquired Intrepid with a view to help customers understand social media engagement. This is a great example of recognizing that we don’t just sell technology, but we have to assist customers understand the value and how to shape their strategies, especially in something as relatively new as social. Customers do approach us as trusted advisors and not just about social media, but across the board Alterian brings us closer to the world of the CMO and the challenges they face. 

These are just my quick thoughts, a top three of a list that is sure to be expanded as we bring our products together in 2012.  

Welcome Alterian, I look forward to working with you.. again!

(OK, that might be the fourth thing I like - the people).

Ian Truscott

On Twitter: @iantruscott

To find out more information regarding the acquisition you can check out our dedicated site regarding the deal. Alternatively watch the video of John Hunter and Mark Lancaster discussing the benefits of this acquisition.

We are very excited here at SDL, as we look back over the last 20 years and celebrate the success of SDL. It really has been a great success story that started with a couple of people in a living room here in Maidenhead, UK and has now grown to over 2400 employees in 60 offices across 35 countries! You can visit our history page on the website for more information on the growth of SDL. 

We had a look at some interesting statistics from 1992 and we will show you more of those throughout the year. One that I found interesting was that AT&T released a video phone in 1992 for $1,499! And you look at the world today – over 5 billion smartphones are used globally!

Wir freuen uns, dass die Klingelnberg AG mit dem renommierten tekom Dokupreis 2011 während der tekom Jahrestagung ausgezeichnet wurde. Einen wichtigen Beitrag hierzu leisteten die SDL-Lösungen.

Pascal Kesselmark, Leiter der Technischen Dokumentation bei Klingelnberg: „Wir freuen uns sehr über diese Auszeichnung, da wir kontinuierlich an der Optimierung der Technischen Dokumentation arbeiten. Um dies zu erreichen, müssen wir nicht nur die richtigen Softwarelösungen und unser fachliches Know How einsetzen, sondern auch die Prozesse stetig optimieren. Die SDL-Lösungen unterstützen uns hierbei enorm, denn wir können damit die inhaltliche Qualität automatisiert sicherstellen. Was nützen klar definierte Schreibregeln, wenn man diese nicht einhält oder wieso akzeptiert man höhere Übersetzungskosten, weil gleiche Inhalte mehrmals in ähnlicher Form geschrieben werden? Und genau hier liegt die Stärke von SDL: Man kann sehr einfach Prüfregeln auf Wort- und Satzebene erstellen und so, ohne Mehrkosten, die Überprüfung der Inhalte seinen Qualitätsbedürfnissen anpassen. Bereits übersetzte Texte können wiederverwendet werden, so dass die Übersetzungskosten reduziert und eine sprachliche Durchgängigkeit in unterschiedlichen Dokumenten gewährleistet wird. Durch die Autorenunterstützung von SDL kann ich als Verantwortlicher für die Technische Dokumentation sicher sein, dass die Dokumente auch strukturell und formal in Ordnung sind und mich auf das Wesentliche konzentrieren – nämlich die Inhalte!“

I was really happy that Jack Molisani decided to host Lavacon this year in my adopted backyard, Austin TX. LavaCon, for those that don’t know, is a conference dedicated to digital content and this years theme was Developing Content for a Global Audience which is a perfect theme for the time we are in.

In the globalised world in which we operate, where what happens in Greece affects citizens here in the UK and a tsunami in Japan impacts sales in the US, exports are seen as a way of aiding recovery. An article in the news today highlights the discussion.

Companies need to be able to take products globally and do so from a multi-channel perspective in this day and age. It is no longer the case that we can think in our own islands or countries. As economies at home falter, economies elsewhere in the globe are growing and capturing those markets is key to success as a business. SDL helps companies with their sales and marketing in global markets - helping them set up multilingual, brand consistent websites that are also prepared for mobile and that speak to local markets, ensuring operational efficicencies for creating user and technical support information and overall helping companies engage with their global customers. You can find out by listening to some of our customers say it themselves - HP, Informatica and LG to name a few.

In today's business environment, it is no longer the case that you simply push broad messages and information out to your customers in a format or a language that they don't want and expect them to be happy with it. Today, it is important to engage with customers - to provide relevant information for what they seek, in a language they understand and through the media that they want to receive it. You can watch a short video that explains this concept. We have just announced our conference for next year, so you can also attend the conference for free that covers this exact topic next March, 2012.

Save the Date: SDL Innovate 2012 - Mastering Global Customer Engagement.  SDL Innovate 2012 will take place March 5-6, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara. You can register here:  www.sdl.com/innovate

SDL Innovate 2012 is a two day, free conference, where you’ll learn how to master global customer engagement. Take this opportunity to network with your peers and hear from other top global organizations on how they have applied Global Information Management (GIM) strategies at their organization to accelerate time-to-global markets, enhance their brand equity and reduce operating costs.

You’ll learn how to:

• Respond to the demands of your expanding, multilingual customer base and improve customer engagement across all channels
• Provide personalized and persuasive information to your customers across multiple platforms and delivery channels
• Transform technical documentation into intelligent product content with DITA - for delivery anytime, anywhere, on any device
• Ensure global brand consistency in today’s modern marketing world
• Drive top and bottom line growth in today's competitive global economy