Knowledge management in the enterprise is a term so worn out that most managing directors mentally push back their chair at the mere mention of it. For good reason: over the past 20 years they have lived through at least three knowledge-management projects that began with software investments and ended with disbanded staff units. The […]
Technical documentation as the superbrain of digitalisation — that is a claim I often explain in consulting sessions and rarely leave unchallenged. I hold the view nonetheless, with arguments I have gathered over 28 years and set out below. First, an observation from consulting: companies routinely invest six- or seven-figure sums in ERP, PLM, CRM. […]
In 2026, translation management is no longer a pure language service. It is an interface discipline between writing, IT, legal, and sales. Treat it that way and you save 25 to 40 % of the effort per language. Keep running it as an order placed with an external provider, and you pay more every year. […]
Digitalisation projects in the Mittelstand rarely fail because of the technology. They fail because of four disciplines that nobody wants to see lumped together: technical documentation, knowledge management, translation, and content engineering. Cut one of them, and you have damaged the other three with it. Over the past years I have seen many digitalisation projects […]
Content engineering is the discipline that, in technical communication, turns a stack of Word files into a controllable system. Anyone working without content engineering in 2026 can still write manuals, but can no longer integrate them into their customers’ digital delivery processes — nor into the regulatory requirements of the Machinery Regulation 2027. In practice […]
Technical documentation in an economic crisis is a topic that is on the agenda in many technical writing departments right now. Here is what really matters in practice, beyond marketing claims and tool promises. TL;DR Outsourcing technical documentation during a crisis sounds like saving money, but it is often the most expensive decision a company […]
Media-neutral data management and a valid data model is a topic that is on the agenda in many technical writing departments right now. Here is what really matters in practice, beyond marketing claims and tool promises. TL;DR Media-neutral data management is not an IT decision — it decides whether your documentation scales in five years […]
On-site work vs. remote work is a topic that is on the agenda in many technical writing departments right now. Here is what really matters in practice, beyond marketing claims and tool promises. TL;DR The remote-work debate is framed the wrong way. If you can’t lead by results, you will build good teams neither with […]
Digital transformation in technical documentation is a topic that is on the agenda in many technical writing departments right now. Here is what really matters in practice, beyond marketing claims and tool promises. TL;DR Digital transformation in technical documentation does not fail because of the tool. It fails because the data model comes after the […]
Single Point of Truth is a topic that is on the agenda in many technical writing departments right now. Here is what really matters in practice, beyond marketing claims and tool promises. TL;DR If you don’t know which version of your information is valid, you don’t have a documentation problem — you have a systemic […]