Autodesk Manufacturing
The Content Bureau put the polish on ebooks.
Brian Sather is an industry marketing leader in Autodesk’s Design and Manufacturing Marketing division, and he prides himself on producing world-class marketing collateral. “We’re a $4 billion company—we don’t want just okay content; we want content that’s so valuable customers would be willing to pay us for it.”
And he knows when to outsource. Sather wrote the bulk of the text for two ebooks on managing design data—then he called the Content Bureau. “I’m good at engineering and marketing, but my writing leaves something to be desired. I can get a document to 80% of where it needs to be. Then I need someone else to give it an expert polish.” The Content Bureau gave Sather thoughtful advice on making his ebook copy more readable and on point. “We had a single page of content that included statistics, quotes, and an entire list of challenges,” he says. “The editor didn’t just go over each sentence; she reorganized the entire page so that it flowed much better. That one tweak really improved the ebook overall.”
In addition to a careful edit, Sather wanted a design template—one that the company could use again for future ebooks. “We ended up with a clean and crisp template, which is something with long-term value,” he says. “I’ve already heard from two colleagues who want to use it for their own ebooks, so it’s great that we’ve built this starting point for other groups to use.”
Matching his and his team’s deep knowledge with the Content Bureau’s attention to detail is a smart investment of everyone’s skills, Sather says. “I want to spend my time in ways that bring the most value to the company. These ebooks are a great example of using the Content Bureau team’s strengths in areas where we’re not as strong—to create the highest-quality content for our customers.”