All posts by vica

Contributing to Mekon’s Bitesize on Business Rules, June 2018: brDoc: The Attributes You Shouldn’t Ignore

July 1, 2018S1000Dvica

I have written recently a new article for Mekon’s Bitesize series on S1000D business rules. It addresses two XML attributes, the use of which can change Business Rules production process from slow and tedious to efficient, and maintenance costs of technical publications from high to reasonable. These attributes are the business rule Decision Point Priority (brDecisionPointPriority), and business rules Severity Level (brSeverityLevel). Both attributes are present in the new business rules Document (brDoc) Schema introduced in the S1000D Issue 4.2, whereas the latter (brSeverityLevel) has been also added to the well-known BREX Schema. To find out more about these attributes click on the title of the article “brDoc: The Attributes You Shouldn’t Ignore” or here.

(Credits: Photograph ©canva.com with the keyword characteristic)

To learn more about business rules in general and about S1000D business rules in particular, and to keep them under control, check out the following books:

and resources:

A Summer Read for S1000D Lovers

June 29, 2018S1000Dvica

If you implement S1000D, then you also work with S1000D business rules. You either have to create them or follow them, or both.

The S1000D specification is several thousand pages long, has several tenths of XML Schema and as many objects to support its use in any of the download packages at www.s1000d.org.

And if you try to address the Business Rules Decision Points (BRDP) and define your project’s or organization’s business rules you will see that you will have to address 427 in S1000D Issue 4.2, 552 in Issue 4.1 and over 700 in Issue 4.0.1.

That sounds pretty overwhelming, doesn’t it?

Susanne Berg from Mekon Ltd suggested about two years ago that I write short articles for their blog category called “Bitesize Business Rules.” I agreed and discovered that writing in little bits about business rules, did make the topic less overwhelming and more understandable. With Mekon’s permission, I have gathered all the articles published there, revised, and had them professionally edited. And today, I have published a little book with the title brDoc, BREX, and Co.: S1000D Business Rules Made Easier.

Based on the feedback to the articles of the “Bitesize Business Rules” series, the bite-sized articles on business rules can help you to “taste” and “digest” one aspect of S1000D business rules (and to some extent also implementation) at a time.

I hoped to make the book available before the S1000D User Forum that will take place in New Orleans this year on September 10-13.

And first I thought the title of this post could be a good joke, but now I think such a book could be “digested” even better when you read it in an atmosphere a bit remote from the actual work. While at it, you could get a new perspective on the complex and multi-dimensional topic of S1000D business rules.

If you read this far, then I invite you to check out the description of this little book here.

How to Start Playing Your Motivational Games

June 28, 2018Self-Gamificationvica

In the previous lectures of the online course Motivate Yourself by Turning Your Life into Fun Games, we’ve addressed the importance to want to see your projects as games, to design them, to actually start playing them, and develop them. This lecture will give you tips on how you can start playing your motivational games because the start might seem the most daunting when you are preparing for it. A spoiler alert: also for the start, you use the three skill-sets introduced by this course.

A note: This is the last of the free videos of the online course Motivate Yourself by Turning Your Life into Fun Games shared with you in this blog and social media. Over the ten free videos gave an insight of all sections (except Section 7: Conclusions and Congratulations) of the course. Here is the list of the course’s sections:

Section 1: Introduction
Section 2: Self-Gamification and its Three Components
Section 3: Study Yourself as an Anthropologist
Section 4: Identify Small Steps, the Kaizen Way
Section 5: Design, Play, and Develop Your Games
Section 6: Practice, Enjoy, and Share
Section 7: Conclusions and Congratulations

If you would like to learn more about this self-motivational online course, then click on the image below or the link in the brackets (https://www.udemy.com/motivate-yourself-by-turning-your-life-into-fun-games/…) to access the course’s landing page.

Btw, there is a possibility to enroll in the for 93% off. But join soon since this offer goes until June 30, 2018, and there were only 100 spots in total initially available. Reserve your spot now:
https://www.udemy.com/motivate-yourself-by-turning-your-life-into-fun-games/?couponCode=SELF-GAMIFY_JUN-2018

Willing to Gamify Your Life

June 27, 2018Self-Gamificationvica

You can’t have fun in a game without willing to play it and actually playing it. The same is with turning your life into fun games: you won’t have any success with that without your voluntary participation. And more than that, you have to want not only to play your motivational games but also to design them and improve them, and before all that to see your projects and activities as games. This video addresses various aspects of the voluntary participation in self-gamification.

Main Elements of Games, Projects, and Activities

June 26, 2018Self-Gamificationvica

If you ever doubted that a project or activity could be turned into a fun game, then I invite you to take a look at the components of a game. When you do it, you might see that any project or activity having success has all the four main elements of a game: a goal, rules that are followed, feedback system, and voluntary participation.

This lecture of the course Motivate Yourself by Turning Your Life into Fun Games explains how and gives concrete examples.