Action Items: 05-08-2017 Adoption TC Meeting

["Dr. Stanley Doherty" <stan@modularwriting.com>]

==================================================== 
           DITA Adoption TC Action Items 
                   05-08-2017 
==================================================== 
Attendees: Stan, Don, Scott, Joe, Kathy
Regrets:   Keith
====================================================

DISCUSSION: Observations from the CIDM DITA NA Listening Sessions. 
- Scott, Kathy, and Stan shared their observations about
  topics that came up during the ATC Listening Session.
- Well attended
- Lots of interest in hosting listening sessions in the
  upper-midwest, e.g. Milwaukee, Toronto, Chicago.
- Topics:
a. Change management issues (both with company management
   and with writers) seemed more pressing than technical 
   issues about DITA. Kathy mentioned that CIDM plans 
   to have speakers with this cross-over focus. 
   Strategies for convincing people to make the change
   willingly need to be discussed/documented. 
b. Building out the DITA tool chain. Documenting ways
   that groups have implemented the basic elements 
   of the tool chain AND moved into things such as
   CI (continuous integration) or customized output
   needs to be developed. There needs to be easier
   ways to figure this out -- cookbooks. 
c. Lightweight DITA - lots of interest and also some
   concern that it may be oversold as "easy" for
   everyone.
d. YAHOO group - seemed to be interest in developing
   something better than the current list. Perhaps
   more structured and usable.
   > DXO does not have forum capabilities in the 
     current design.
   > Something like Slack may be attractive.
   > Perhaps we should consider polling Yahoo DUG
     folks for their issues.
e. Action Items
   > Scott - distribute conference notes to the list
     (DONE).
   > Stan - distribute conference notes to the list.
   > All - collect ideas about follow-up.

WEBINARS
Kathy encouraged the team to develop ideas about 90-minute "How to" webinars (60-minute talks and 30-minute Q&A sessions). 
a. How to customize DITA-OT output (basic).
b. How to approach change management with writers.
c. How to approach change management with senior management.
d. Stan - How to integrate Markdown and Jarno's Markdown 
   parser into your publishing pipeline. 
   AI/Stan - send Kathy a synopsis for review.
e. Job titles/descriptions for DITA shops - who are we?
   what do we do? what skills are required for the job?
   AI/Stan - send the team contact information about 
   folks at the DITA NA wrap-up session who had 
   indicated interest/expertise in this area. 

WHITEPAPERS
AI/Stan - touch base with Keith about the state of in-progress 
          whitepapers on XSLT and style guides. 
AI/Stan - touch base with coordinators for the yet-to-be-
          scheduled listening sessions.