Michael Priestley: Creator of the DITA Structured-Content Standard – Episode 192

Content Strategy Insights

Michael Priestley Twenty-four years ago at IBM, the company's commitment to user-focused content led to the decision to develop a standard way of structuring content so that it could be used in multiple channels. Michael Priestley was uniquely positioned to guide the team that created the technical approach to the corporate standard that would ultimately become DITA, the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, a few years later. We talked about: his current role as Principal Information Architect and Taxonomist at avalara.com the DITA origin story how his IA and writing backgrounds and familiarity with XML the concept, task, and reference information typing at the core of the DITA standard how the notion of specialization led to the addition of "Darwin" to the information typing architecture they had developed the role of XSLT in the development of the DITA standard how their focus at IBM on user needs - specifically the need for modular content organized around topics delivered in multiple formats - resulted in a standard that also permitted content to be re-used in other ways how the need to organize content at the topic level both serves user needs and creates an optimal content-element size for re-use the three C's of DITA: content, collections (DITA maps), and classification (metadata) how the technical writing heritage at IBM facilitated the introduction of structured authoring there his happiness with the success of DITA to this point, and how the challenges going forward mostly involve people and the organizations they work in the wide range of content roles he held at IBM in his 24 years there his ongoing preoccupation with always staying connected and working with other writers and content disciplines Michael's bio Michael is the Principal Information Architect and Taxonomist for avalara.com, focused on the intersection of semantic content, user experience, and SEO at the enterprise scale. Michael has experience working with and across marketing, sales, training, documentation, and support content, coordinating requirements, and delivering common processes and standards. He was named an OASIS Distinguished Contributor for his development of the DITA content standard. Connect with Michael online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/1BGNQx1wcSU Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 192. If you've ever worked in or around support documentation or technical communication, you've probably come across the DITA standard for creating and managing structured content. Michael Priestley developed this standard during his long tenure at IBM. DITA - an acronym for Darwin Information Typing Architecture - arose from the need for Michael and his colleagues to help users of IBM products by sharing the same topical content across different channels. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 192 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I am super delighted today to welcome to the show Michael Priestley. Michael is currently the Principal Information Architect and Taxonomist at avalara.com, the big tax software services company. But welcome to the show, Michael. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're doing these days. Michael: Sure. I'm reorganizing a website, which is my weirdly happy place. It's funny. I spent most of my career at IBM in a lot of different content-related roles, but the last thing I was doing there was working on their website. It was a challenging, large website. I came up with a number of strategies. Then I got the opportunity to potentially execute them in a different space with a different set of webpages and it was a really good opportunity. It's a really supportive team. They're excited. They support information architecture. They support thinking about content, got a great executive team,