SDL announced this week the availability of its technical documentation platform, LiveContent 2011. SDL is hoping to transform stodgy technical documentation into an interactive, personalized experience available on multiple platforms and devices. 

It's a tall order, but it could change the way we think about technical documentation. According to a statement, SDL describes LiveContent 2011 this way: "SDL LiveContent brings technical information to life and heralds the death of the traditional "technical manual.""

The idea is the holy grail of structured documentation; to be able to pull the information you need on the fly from a database, and deliver customized content to the user on whatever device he or she is using.

Toby Bell, vice president of Gartner Research says the goal is to provide a way to let users access and use information more effectively. "Everything is changing incredibly fast. The ways that corporations are communicating with customers has transformed accordingly: To provide media-rich, meaningful and contextually targeted information to customers and prospects," he said.

If this works as advertised--and make no mistake, this is very difficult to pull off--it could transform the way we think of documentation, but in the end it's basically DITA 1.2  with a couple of bells and whistles like the ability to send comments to authors, so they can respond quickly to problems and a dashboard that lets managers see how the content is being used.

All this is useful, but it remains to be seen if it's truly transformative or just another attempt to bring to bear the full power and endless potential of XML content management.

For more information:
- see the SDL press release

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