Content Delivery and Buzzword Bingo

Published: 2019-10-09 Updated: 2023-02-27

Welcome to the IoT – the Internet of Things. You will certainly also have noticed that everything is linked! From the ink levels on your printer to the sensor data on your wearable technology to the GPS location of your e-scooter, things are collecting and exchanging information autonomously – all to make people’s lives easier. E-scooters can be parked anywhere and easily found by the next person because their location is automatically shared with the app. Although this is one very specific case, within the industry, information is automatically exchanged between completely different systems to make it easier for people to work.

Content Delivery and Buzzword Bingo

When it comes to using information to make people’s lives easier, technical writers are right at the front of the queue. But how do you get the two worlds of IoT and technical writing on an even footing? Whilst IoT often mainly involves information that can be evaluated by systems, technical writing is clearly focused on content that can be interpreted by people. To use this content in the context of the IoT, the information must be comprehensible both for people and for “machines”, at the same time. For years, our answer to this has been metadata. After all, it is only metadata that are exchanged in the IoT in any case (“Ink empty”, “Temperature too high”, “New location”). So why not combine metadata and content? Given that metadata are also important for targeted content delivery scenarios, this quickly raises the question of whether content delivery is an answer to the IoT in technical documentation. It is our opinion in any case that, in addition to delivering content, a CDP can also serve as a central location for storing, managing and processing intelligent content. In this way, this intelligent content can be moved from one system to the next so that people can interact with content within systems and systems can interact with each other. Our video, “What is Content Delivery?”, shows how this could look in concrete terms.

Now, this has all been a bit philosophical; we’ve shown you a video and generally tried to shed some light on content delivery, but would you perhaps like to experience IoT live? If so, we recommend our German presentation “Modern Talking 4.0 – intelligent information and IoT you can touch” at the tekom Annual Conference 2019 and in the BlueBox at our stand. We have prepared a showcase that makes the concept of IoT tangible in practical terms and references content delivery. What kind of showcase will it be? A picture is worth a thousand words:

Of course, we don’t want to reveal too much here. However, we hope that we have piqued your curiosity and that you will drop in to see us. We will be available for questions and suggestions at the stand and in our German presentation. After tekom, the SCHEMA blog will also host the release and presentation of our showcase.

About Jochen Marczinzik

Jochen Marczinzik is a Team Leader at SCHEMA GmbH and Product Owner of the Content Delivery Suite. He has been active in the field of technical documentation for almost 25 years, of which more than 10 years were spent as a consultant and project manager.

About Tim Rausch

Tim Rausch is an experienced industrial mechanic who studied Technical Writing (B.A.) and Communication and Media Management (M.Sc.) at the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences. During his studies, he specialised in XSLT, content management and content delivery. He now works as a CDS consultant for the SCHEMA Group.