IndyDITA users:

I gave an introductory presentation about DITA at the February Indiana STC meeting. In my opinion, the greatest obstacle to understanding DITA lies in changing the author's paradigm from writing in books or narratives to writing topics.

I base this opinion on the number of questions I answered similar to:

à        How do I find the information I want in the database?

à        What if a topic is written, and later someone writes it in a different format?

à        OK, we have a topic. Now how do we know how long it can be and what it can contain?

In order to learn to think "topic-ally" you might consider watching a free webinar by

Blast Radius entitled DITA: Moving from Books to Topics. The speaker is

JoAnn Hackos, PhD, President/CEO of Comtech Services, Inc.

Date: March 2, 2006

Time: 12pm EST

Cost: Free

Enroll at: 

https://blastradiusevents.webex.com/blastradiusevents/mywebex/epmainframe.php?rlink=https%3A%2F%2Fblastradiusevents.webex.com%2Fblastradiusevents%2Fonstage%2Fmainframe.php%3Fmainurl%3D%2Fblastradiusevents%2Fonstage%2Ftool%2Fprogram%2Fprogram_detail.php%3FcProgramID%3D12%26Rnd%3D246085790&Rnd6288=0.13334006274938037

If you have never attended a webinar, you can get help setting up your computer at:

https://blastradiusevents.webex.com/blastradiusevents/mywebex/epmainframe.php?rlink=https%3A%2F%2Fblastradiusevents.webex.com%2Fblastradiusevents%2Fonstage%2Fmainframe.php%3Fmainurl%3D%2Fblastradiusevents%2Fonstage%2Ftool%2Fprogram%2Fprogram_detail.php%3FcProgramID%3D12%26Rnd%3D246085790&Rnd6288=0.13334006274938037

It is not difficult. Only takes a couple of minutes.

If these complex URLs are not clickable, I suggest that you copy and paste to get them correct. Even a Technical Communication Wizard would have trouble typing all of that info correctly.

Greg