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Bard International is proud of its achievements. Here are a few articles and press releases that relate to us.

Overview
Bard’s contract with Cisco Systems, Inc. began in November, 2006 with only two technical writers. Cisco quickly saw that Bard was just the kind of dynamic, pro-active team they needed. Bard writers grasped new tools and software quickly and were soon working on multiple product releases. Bard was able to deliver documentation using multiple formats such as .pdf, Framemaker, Robohelp and HTML. After only one quarter, Cisco doubled the Bard team, and added two more in the following quarter. Within 18 months, Cisco’s Bard team had grown to 13 full-time writers working on a wide variety of Cisco projects.

Our Client
Cisco Systems, Inc. (www.cisco.com) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Cisco’s Internet Protocol (IP) software is the foundation of the Internet. Cisco designs and sells networking and communications technology and services for corporate, education, and government networks around the world. Cisco provides the world’s broadest line of networking solutions.

Success Story 1: The Interim Frame Strategy
The Bard team was chosen to work on a documentation overhaul project and embarked on the Interim Frame Strategy (IFS). The IFS is the overall strategy to develop and deliver a single-source solution for Cisco IOS configuration guides and command references in the FrameMaker environment. This initiative was developed by Cisco to reduce high-cost activities such as book building and maintenance and to provide a scalable solution for sharing and delivering common documentation across organizations that support the various Cisco IOS trains and products.

The Bard team was soon doing technical writing tasks such as:

• Running Frame Scripts to update documentation in bulk
• Migrating documents
• Creating book wrappers
• Importing new FrameMaker files
• Publishing stand alone features, Configuration Guides and Command References to cisco.com.

The Bard writers worked on Configuration Guides and Command References across all technologies for many releases and became extremely proficient with all functions.

To work across multiple releases, each document must be researched and updated independently to ensure that nothing is overlooked, a real risk when dealing with a huge quantity of material. Cisco IOS projects have extremely aggressive deadlines so that the Bard writers must come up to speed quickly and work independently. Despite a very steep learning curve, the writers stayed focused on the results and got the job done on time and on budget.

Success Story 2: Cisco Internship Pilot Program 2007-8
The idea for a Technical Writing Internship was conceived by Tom Fitzgerald, MD of Bard. Tom recognized the need to develop dedicated, motivated, and competent writers with well honed core skills at low cost to the client. As a fast-growing company, Bard recognized that it needed to ensure that there were sufficient writers available to match its growing demands.

Bard used EU funding from Údarás na Gaeltachta to train five graduates to the level of Technical Writing Certificates from the University of Limerick (UL) using UL’s e-learning program. Údarás helped to pay the interns while they were in the program. Each intern was assigned a Bard mentor and a Cisco mentor and they worked twenty hours each week on Cisco projects while working another 20 on studying on the UL certificate program. Five months into the program, one of the interns, began work on a new Cisco project. Her Cisco boss was surprised and delighted with her progress in what was a very difficult project allowing little support from Cisco.

Cisco Project Manager

“I just thought I'd let you know how pleased I am with the work that I have seen from your intern. Our team has been overwhelmed with bug fixes that need to go into the release notes for each release. Your intern caught on very quickly, and I was very glad to see what she has accomplished with so little input from us.”

Following the completion of the certificate, the interns were able to go to work for Bard as fully qualified technical writers. As a result of the success of the intern program, Cisco wants to double the number of interns for 2008-9.