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An Introduction to Single Sourcing

In the twenty-five years I have been in the field of technical communications, I've seen dozens of fads come and go. There's a particular pattern I've noticed to this phenomenon, which goes something like this:

"Managing your daily workflow used to be chaotic and overwhelming. The new toolset, (insert flavor of the day—CASE tools, the paperless office, structured engineering), is designed to solve that problem. You may be a skeptic at first, but once you try (new flavor), you will be amazed at the results."

Then follows a series of case studies about how this new toolset has transformed life at various large and small corporations, and even in the homes of some Very Famous People. The point is that the magical tool solves the fundamental problems of workflow organization, eliminating redundancy and producing efficiency if not nirvana. In this, the pattern resembles that of fad diet books that periodically sweep best seller lists. But like miracle diets, the basic physics of the problem never changes. To permanently lose weight, you must alter your lifestyle to eat less and exercise more. In the same way, to streamline workflow, whether improving techniques for managing documents or improving the entire software development life cycle, the hard parts are analysis, developing intelligent policy that fits the specific organization, and rigorous maintenance.

This is all by way of a preface to the first series of TechProse Tips for 2004, a discussion of single sourcing, the current buzz word in technical writing. I'm a fan of single sourcing. But I begin this discussion with the reminder that it is not a magic pill that will solve the basic issues of reusability that serious writers have been grappling with since 1454. Single sourcing as a concept is simply a more sophisticated version of "write once, use many." That is, for any given product line or set of documents, there are concepts and procedures that are similar—even identical—across the suite of information. Ideally, writers should be able to assemble documents with the help of a Lego-like set of reusable text, graphic, and even multi-media objects, creating only the portions of the material unique to that document. Instead of creating a document that is a static object, chunks of information can be stored and linked in a way that allows for instant update across all instances. Thus "write once, use many," becomes "update once, distribute instantly."

It's not hard to see the appeal of this strategy. No longer will your organization have ten variant introductions or mission statements or procedures. Instead, writers can develop the "best of show" and reuse and update as necessary. Consistency, elegance, an end to the frustrating maze of conflicting selections—isn't this beginning to sound like a tech writer's version of the Atkins diet? But to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, between the concept and the reality falls the shadow. Lest you end up in a wasteland of useless objects, you need to invest significant time and energy into the analysis and structure of reusable content, and all the infinitely tricky issues of reuse.

Next month, we'll focus on some of these problems and some practical tips on how to get started. In the meantime, if you are a member of the Society for Technical Communication, you can join the single sourcing special interest group, and tune into some of the real-life discussions on this topic.