10th STC India Conference @ Pune

It is not the first time that I am penning down the minutes of the STC India Annual Conferences. Every time I jot it down, I question myself for failing to do proper justice to the STC India Annual conferences. I am sure this time I have done an OK performance. My apologies if I have missed out on something.

In years to come they will say great wine must age like STC India conferences. There is a sense of excitement as you uncork another bottle. The 10th STC India Annual conference at Pune kept the sparks flying and lived more than its expectations. The city of Pune played host to this year’s conference staged between the 11th and 13th December, 2008.



December 11:

The STC India Annual conference celebrated technical communication excellence by a Leadership day and Pre-conference workshop simultaneously. The Leadership Day sessions of STC India’s Annual Conference were held at The President Hotel, Pune. Topics ranging from “Tips on how to work with universities and colleges to start with Technical Writing Courses” to “What it takes to be a Distinguished Chapter” were discussed.

The leadership day got more stimuli with a captivating presentation by Vice Admiral SC Suresh Bangara, who used the clips of Bollywood movie “CHAK DE” to usher in the importance of leadership. He believes that leaders are born but leadership qualities can definitely be inculcated or bred amongst everyone.

Pre-conference workshops: The preconference workshops of STC India’s 10th Annual Conference were held at The President Hotel, Pune. Mahesh Gupta gave hands-on exercises to understand DITA concepts and their implementation in FrameMaker. While Vasanth educated the audience on managing technical documentation projects based on Project Management Institute and Agile project management principles.

A parallel track ran in which Sandhya Prasad educated the audience on their role in the documentation life cycle. She shared ideas on Project management tips, tools, techniques, Learn best practices on documentation project management.



December 12 & 13: Conference Days

Along with full two days of all the regular sessions: paper discussion, panel discussions, and the quiz this year Unconference sessions were introduced. Topics ranging from “Web 2.0” to “The Zen of Technical Writing- A sequel” were discussed.

Throughout the conference there were constant interaction amongst the speakers and participants were constantly networking themselves.

The highlight of the conference for me was the much-awaited panel discussion on “The economic slowdown and its impact on Technical Writing in India”. Edwin Skau presided over the session and the panel discussion included managers from different companies. The panel was of unanimous view in their decisions that technical writing will suffer due to the economic slowdown. It also urged the technical writers to start working on their weak points and utilize the time to build up their core skills and learn more on their domain.

Paresh Naik presided over the STC India Salary survey.

Amidst all this knowledge sharing, the conference was a hub for various companies to set up their respective stalls not only to share their company awareness but also to solicit feedback from the delegates. Also, there were contests organized and hordes of prizes given. The 10th STC Annual Conference at Pune proved to be a showcase of knowledge sharing and diversifying technical communication knowledge to all the quarters.

LIVE: STC INDIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE @ PUNE

Every year, it keeps on becoming the much awaited event for the technical communicators in India. Last year, it witnessed a surprising turnout of 300 writers in India' "Beach City"- Goa. This year, I am glad to be a part of the 10th Annual STC India Conference at Pune.

The buzz is tremendous with most of the writers, instructional designers, usability consultants & specialists waiting to network and share knowledge amongst the counterparts. I look forward to be a part of the show this time too, in the colors of Bangalore STC India City Representative. And,who knows, the following year, you may just see me as the STC India Secretary, touchwood. I am running for the STC India Elections 2008-09.

I have been a part of STC India activities for some time now, and have attended in the past attended Bangalore and Goa conference. This year, the conference expects a turnout of 300 people, and it would not be surprising if we get a few late registrations.

I would be presenting my first STC India Annual Conference presentation along with my friend, Saravanan Manoharan, senior writer with Mtree software, Noida. We will be presenting a topic on "WIKI BASED DOCUMENTATION USING JOOMLA".

I would be using this platform to regularly update on the conference activities as and when it happens. This idea was instigated to me by my fellow colleague Sreeraj Nair. Right now, am busy with preparing the presentation and trying hard to collate information on wikis and Joomla.

Folks, I'll try to update on the proceedings as and when it happens. Please bear with me if the wi-fi facilities do not work or I get lost in the beautiful locales of Pune.

My Take on Google Chrome

In Marketing parlance: Once you have a brand name, you don’t need publicity at all. Google must be wondering and thanking stars for they have managed to save cash in not marketing for their latest product- Chrome. These chaps make world class online applications, and understandably are the ruling classes of online search engine.

This was much expected; Google has been giving sleepless nights to Microsoft over the past few years, and with its own Internet Browser ‘Chrome’ – Bill Gates you need to do some serious thinking.

Chrome released this week and within a few hours finds itself in the desktops of a few hundreds of computers. This numbers will keep on adding in the days to come, and much like Gmail- Google’s own internet email application, will dominate the market soon.

My assumptions of Chrome hitting the market and being the very best has got to quite a few factors but namely with the market war on Internet Browsers. Observe the scenario: a few years back when Internet became a household name, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the only thing available to the common man.

It was like if you wish to access the world wide web Internet Explorer were the only medium. Though Netscape was the primary browser, it soon fell down. Mozila acquired it. Within few years Mozilla came out with Firefox , which incidentally is an open source browser.



But the interesting part was it had lots of features, faster and bug free (almost). Till date though IE continues to dominate the browser scene with 50 % Firefox has slow and steady and caught up along with Apples Safari.

Faster: Initial days but Chrome is fast- real fast. Its interface is intuitive and just a few keystrokes and joom you are on. Downloading takes a lesser time compared with IE and firefox. Chrome uses Webkit (aka Apple Safari’s Engine) for rendering web pages.

By default, Chrome displays the top nine visited websites on the system on clicking a new tab. This identically gives you a preview to the history of the websites and also allows you the select any of the sites without any additional keystrokes.

The memory usage is very low when you think that it has varied security and javascript tookboxes.

It’s only released for Windows at the moment and will require sometime before its released for Linux.So all those Linux lovers, use it. Initial days. I suggest you try installing and playing with it for sometime.

I love using Google apps , and I am in Totally for it. Well guys! time will tell, but for now much like the Mcdonald's product "I am loving it"

Minutes of the Presentation at Adobe on 30th August

Date: August 30, 2008

Time: 10.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.

Venue: Adobe Systems

Session 1: “Documentation Document usability testing - How to kick start” by Rajdeep Gupta.

Session 2: "Ten tips for enhancing productivity at your workplace: Tools and Processes that can be used to get the most out of your working hours" by Preran Kurnool and “Getting the most out of your help projects: Tips and Tricks with RoboHelp and Acrobat" by Mallika Yelandur.

Rajdeep Gupta started the day’s sessions after setting the meeting’s agenda and introducing the participants.

Rajdeep noted that documentation usability testing could enable users to find information to accomplish a particular task or employ a particular tool in an easy and efficient manner. He emphasized that performing usability testing on documents requires a good understanding of the users and their constraints.

Technical writers and in-house resources could do the document usability testing within a structured and detail-oriented framework. Document usability testing also involves best practices, protocols, understanding and evaluation of user feedback.


Rajdeep also detailed the document usability testing process that he employed, and explained how the testing environment was set up, the resources were identified, and the time and budget were planned. He also presented a classification of “usability errors” that he found while performing document usability testing.


Event: Bangalore TW Meetup Session-Supported by STC India

He added that the errors found should be quantified to make technical documentation more usable.


In the second session of the day, Preran provided answers to how Adobe Acrobat Professional 9 could efficiently manage document reviews. Reviewers could collaborate on the review process by seeing and building on other reviewers' comments.

The comments can be uploaded to a central repository and sorted by author, date, or page. A Review Tracker monitors the progress of shared reviews. The tool allows participants to e-mail reviewers, send e-mail reminders, or invite additional participants to a review.

Mallika introduced the attendees to RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), which allows technical writers to convert existing WebHelp files created with RoboHelp 7 to a powerful Adobe AIR application.

After the WebHelp is generated, technical writers can run the AIR package to develop an AIR application and send it to the users as a single file (.air). The application allows the users to add comments to the Help file and create context-sensitive help.

The meeting ended with a vote of thanks by Rajdeep.

Judging a Technical Writer

I have been honored to know couple of tech writers personally, who are not only brilliant in their profession but are well-cultured human beings. Thus this sought them with well earned respect from every walk of life. How do you judge a technical writer?

Obviously,writing is the first criterion, which would stand out. When you say about good writing, what generally you analyze? I won't take names here, but good writers have an immaculate hold over their language. Thus when they are writing its all about the flow; they do not find it a hard terrain. These writers are inquizitive to the core.

Everthing surprises them and they seek for more. Lets talk about a writer in a health domain who suddenly got a freelance offer. The writer has to document on Mobile Technology. I tell you these writers would have googled and gathered enough information before they appear in an interview.

They don't see it as just another work, but the sheer pleasure of documenting a software product/ technology is more than a few dollars to them. These writers believe that if they can make a novice user understand the complexities of the product, they have done a great job.

Lets face the fact: Good writers are seldom available. So, when you catch one, try to sit and learn. I had been horrible in my prime of career (I guess am little better) but thankfully, I had a senior writer helping me out. He has been a learning experience to me.

After observing me for couple of days, he took me aside one fine day and gave me certain tips. He didn't ask me to change my writing style since he believed it was good, but he found it unsuitable for Technical Writing. He told me to go through a few of the documentation guides that he had delivered.

I went through and then he asked me to analyze with my documentation. I was at sea. The first noticeable feature of his writing was clarity. Good writers write in a very clear and simple language and even though it is complex, you'll find each and every line clear.

Gathering Information is the most essential factor in Technical Writing. Belive me as good writers will tell you,"if you can gather information well, 70% of your job is done. Poor documentation happens due to lack of proper information.

" I used to accompany with my seniors when they used to interview the developers and SMEs and the way they gathered information was so immaculate.

How to have a good technical writer placed in your company? Fortunately or unfortunately, there are no tools by which you can find out.

But, I guess you need to hire someone who has an interest in technology, someone who has a knack for learning tools and domain. Prepare a questionnaire where you can feature questions on Grammar as well as Technology.

I asked once someone to write the steps for preparing a cup of coffee. She couldn't write it properly. How on the earth could I expect her to write on something on Technology?

Learning with Me

For those of you who joined me for the first time- seminars, conferences, meetups, chatrooms, personal encounters etc, I am a learner. So, if the topic throws enthusiast glances-ah-this-dude knows everything, than you are completely mistaken. I am with a capital LEARNER. I have been in this technical writing industry for nearly 5 years now, and officially hold the designation of a Technical Writer and Lead Writer for sometime.But call me a WRITER,and I am more open to take you for a drink.

In the capacity of writing software, I have closely encountered with clients,managed project documentation teams, estimated the time and effort of projects and sometimes acted as a consultant. So, I am not going to talk anything about this NOW. Alright, when this opportunity knocked at my door of being a consultant for setting up documentation services for a company, I was like hmmm, ahhh, should I or not?

There are distinct possibilities that may arise and lead you to say NO. First and foremost, if you like me are working for an organization than please note that it's a dangerous thing. So get yourself to do a non-voluntary services. My first suggestion is consultant brings contacts. You work with clients in their spaces and you should try to build contacts in every fashion

Scrolling at your will

As you scroll to the bottom of the page, more content loads up. So there is effectively no end to the scroll (at least till the content ends) and no pagination.

A demo of this control is at:

http://www.symfony-project.org/demo/pager.html

The most seamless application of this is in Google Reader. I’ve been using it for a year, but never noticed the way content is added based on the scroll!