Diane:

You can find some real numbers in almost any DITA case study or
interview. In fact, on my site, the latest DITA interview is with ICOS,
a Belgian firm. They estimate they'll be able to reuse 80% of the DITA
Topics they created. They have not yet been able to measure translation
savings, which with so much reuse, will also be significant (probably
the largest savings).

www.thecontentwrangler.com

There are other examples...

For instance, in another interview I edited, software maker Idiom says:
"We are currently reusing about 5% of our docset. In the next release,
we expect that figure to increase to around 60%, when we single-source
the guides and the online help (which are currently not
single-sourced)...We haven't translated the docset yet. By the time we
do, there should be enough single-sourcing that translation cost will
be optimized because we'll only need to translate reused content once."

http://www.travelthepath.com/structure4.html

In a similar interview with Adobe, the software maker estimates it's
able to reuse 25% of the content it first put into DITA. They also saw
these additional benefits: "We were able to focus on creating content,
not formatting it.
Authors did not have to worry about formatting and could concentrate on
the structure of the content instead. Additionally, the schema served
as a guide to authors on what to enter next. Content re-use meant less
maintenance. Authors could place content references to shared topics
instead of copying and pasting them into different locations.
Consistent output was a big benefit. We could build the same output at
the click of a button. There was no desktop publishing work needed.
And, we were able to use XQuery to run powerful searches across the
content. It was easy to write reports to check for missing images,
broken cross-references, erroneous index terms, etc. "

http://www.travelthepath.com/structure3.html

In the near future, I'll be publishing more interviews with others
using DITA to see what we can learn from them.

Hope this helps!

The Content Wrangler, Inc.
Scott Abel, Content Management Strategist
3421 Crystal Lakes Ct., Sarasota FL 34235
abelsp@... 941-359-3416
www.thecontentwrangler.com
Via Skype: abelsp

TheContentWrangler.com - Look there first!
On Feb 23, 2006, at 12:14 PM, D Wiel wrote:

> Another thing that I know you can probably answer is the question of
> how using DITA "pays."  This came up at the STC meeting last
> month ("how does all that support my business/management needs?") and
> I thought you might know of some resourses that have shown a ROI for
> DITA. I thought IBM had some ficticious examples that illustrated it
> well, but are there any real numbers? 
>  
> Scott Abel <abelsp@...> wrote:
>> Indy DITA Users:
>>
>> With all the chatter about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture
>> in technical communication circles these days, I wanted to offer up
>> this list of resources that might prove useful to those just starting
>> to learn about DITA.
>>
>> Scott
>>
>> 1) DITA 2006: March 23-25, 2006 - Raleigh, NC. Meet, mingle and learn
>> from IBM's Dave Schell, the creator of DITA, and other Darwinian
>> luminaries at DITA 2006, March 23-25, 2006 in Raleigh, NC. Hands-on
>> workshops, case studies, and product demonstrations (including a full
>> vendor exhibition) will be featured along with white papers,
>> presentations, and discussion groups. A call for papers is expected in
>> late August 2005 and a full conference schedule will be announced
>> shortly thereafter. DITA 2006 is being co-sponsored by OASIS and will
>> be the first event of it's kind -- dedicated entirely to educating
>> attendees about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture. Learn
>> more:
>> http://www.travelthepath.com/dita2006.html.
>>
>> 2) DITA: An OASIS Standard. Link to the announcement that spurred all
>> the interest!
>> http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis_news_06_01_05.php
>>
>> 3) Required Reading Resources:
>>
>> IBM’s Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture
>> includes a wealth of information about the history and usage of DITA.
>> Links to other online resources are also provided.
>> Link:
>> http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita1/index.html?
>> open&l=778,t=gr,p=xmlDITA
>>
>> DITA Downloads at IBM includes links to DITA DTDs, DITA schemas and
>> more.
>> Link:
>> http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita6/x-
>> dita_downloads.html
>>
>> DITA Questions and Answers - Arbortext takes a look at some of the
>> common questions surrounding DITA and provides answers designed to
>> demystify the often misundersood concepts and issues.
>> Link: http://www.arbortext.com/resources/dita_q_a.htm
>>
>> Specializing Domains in DITA provides guidance for those hoping to
>> "specialize" (i.e. customize) DITA for their own use.
>> Link:
>> http://wiki.astrogrid.org/pub/Astrogrid/
>> DarwinInformationTypingArchitecture/DITA-domains.html
>>
>> DITA Users Group is a Yahoo! Group dedicated to the discussion of all
>> things DITA.
>> Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/
>>
>> The Content Wrangler, Inc.
>> Scott Abel, Content Management Strategist
>> 3421 Crystal Lakes Ct., Sarasota FL 34235
>> abelsp@... 941-359-3416
>> www.thecontentwrangler.com
>> Via Skype: abelsp
>>
>> TheContentWrangler.com - Look there first!
>>
>>
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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