Tech content colleagues convene cross-border, no casualties
At the Tekom Netherlands-Belgium 2025 cross-border event in Rotterdam tech writers from both countries (and some more) met with 3 million words living in MadCap Flare, multilingual maintenance work instructions in a CCMS, and a pledge for more video content in tutorials. All that on the 23rd floor, with an exquisite view of the sunny city of Rotterdam.
But it wasn't that we had much time to enjoy that view. Instead, we took in Jori Hagevoort's (ChipSoft) step-by-step build-up of how his team came to manage their company's technical documentation of 3 000 000+ words (that's Dune's 6 original novels and the Lord of the Rings trilogy for dessert). Jori's enthusiasm for the flexibility that structured content brings set the tone for the afternoon.
Then, Elisabeth Goethals and Wouter Verkerken (Flow, yes, that's us) guided their peers through the gritty realities of selecting, implementing, and maintaining a CCMS, while helping writers to adapt their writing practices to using DITA and XML. All with the purpose of bringing multilingual work instructions to very different audiences more efficiently, using the same source.
Wouter Maagdenberg (TXTOmedia, XTM) reminded us of the fact that structured content could also mean structured video. He demonstrated how structured content, e.g. a step in a written instruction, can be adapted to audio voice-over by having a genAI tool change the style to audio-proof, but not the content.
One key takeaway? Structured content remains high on the agenda for tech writers. And with the arrival of generative AI in tech doc and the continued integration of video, that's not likely to change anytime soon.
Never did the Belgians and the Dutch agree more. We should do this more often.
