Inspiration

Zen and the Art of Technical Writing- K. Narssimhan Learning is a never-ending journey. We can learn from anything, at any time, in any state of mind. In technical writing, there is a lot more to know apart from the technical writing itself. Good presentation skill is one of them. You can have lots of shareable bytes in your mind but how you pass it on, is a different thing. Make your mind free of any kind of restrictions and see the difference. Now let me introduce you to the CEO of Commit technologies Mr. K Narssimhan. He was my first employer and a mentor to me. But, the thing that makes him stand apart from others is the learning he imparts to the audience knowingly or unknowingly.

How Information Developers Foundation Started? Association of Content Writers, home of Technical writers, business writers, proposal writers and all the neighbouring fields. We call it Information Developers Foundation. We are the first and the largest. How did this foundation start? To help you get out of these questions easily, sharing my experiences of an exciting journey that I had gone through while incorporating Information Developers Foundation.for you. I always wondered why we didn’t have any Indian technical writing society. Where STC exists from 65 years in the US and for twenty years in India, Germany, Netherlands, and many more countries have their own association of technical communicators, we are still struggling to establish technical writing as a profession. I always wanted to see an Indian technical communicators society, that not only organises conferences and events but also works for the upliftment of community from all the needed angles. This idea of executing it myself triggered when one fine day I was out of my office for a tea-break where I met STC volunteer. I was an established trainer by then and had the full dedication serving the technical communicators society. I and Manish were discussing to organise a big event for technical writers and the neighbouring professionals in Delhi. I asked him to contact STC for support such as raising funds getting sponsors etc. As a city representative, he had certain limitations on budgets. Lots of things were required such as getting sponsors, funds, volunteers layout etc. We were not getting much support from STC and certain approvals were needed from the president. It was difficult to manage in that situation so I proposed him to go solo and do it on our own.He was reluctant to do it and counted numerous problems that would restrict the very thought of organising a mega event. He said that he cant work with me unless I register my own foundation as a not-for-profit organisation. According to him I could not get volunteers without it and to register a firm was not an easy task. It takes time and effort combined with lots of documentation when it comes to governmental procedures. I was completely unaware of the roadmap of how to get these things done. Registering as a not-for-profit This was the time when I called one of my friends and my relative Mr Srinivas Chandan who is a CS. I asked him to guide me for my new venture and his assurance gave a new hope. He consulted other firms and his friends for more insight upon the legal formalities for this setup and the journey began. We had to comply with the timelines of registering the firm because I was planning to do this event in November and August had already stepped in. It did not end here, we were soon exposed to the new challenges we had to face. The biggest was to select a name because a couple of names were rejected. We had to form a group of volunteers, select the directors, PAN card and an account number, etc. After the paperwork, we finally succeeded in the incorporation of IDF. Building contact list and pool of volunteers Still, we were data deficient in terms of the mailing list,  social media presence, audience etc. I started with scratches, and my students stood by my side. One of my student Sumit Batra came forward and donated his facebook group to me and offered to change its name to Information developers Foundation and gave its ownership to IDF. Thank you, Sumit. We started making our mailing list and now we have over 2000 subscriber on our mailing list. Finalizing Venue and Finding sponsors Next challenge was to get sponsors as we were new and not on the vendor list of sponsors. We needed a venue and a proposal explaining our agenda before approaching sponsors. Finally, we decided the venue and they asked for the minimum guarantee of participants. I was clueless, how many members will come, and I confirmed for fifteen, after a couple of months after getting a positive response I increased the guarantee to thirty, and one month before the event I increased the guarantee to seventy members. though the venue was booked I was not confident of getting a sponsor and every penny was going from my pocket. I approached Adobe and I got an added confidence when Saibal told me to go ahead with it. Saibal and Ekant helped me with different kind of quotations and proposal also. A meeting with Adobe was finalised and the cards turned into my favour. We got our exclusive sponsor Adobe. Since I was not on their vendor list they told me that  I will have to wait for the funds, and I agreed to it. Gradually I was being aware of little but important things involved in organising, such as backdrops, goodie bags, designing the standees, designing the logos, managing the tracks, themes, managing the venue, certificates etc. Selling Ticket It was time to find a ticketing partner and we teamed up with Mera Events. It was very disappointing when we didn’t see any registration for many days. My first enquiry was from Ahmedabad, Mr Subham. It was like a silver line in the dark. My few students registered but the registration was not going on as per the expectations. We started with free webinars and collecting contact details and after some time Mr Raghuram Pandurangan and Amit Kapoor extended his supporting hand as speaker. Start calling my contacts and industry veterans for speakers. Few came forward for support few opt to watch us. Everything was now going at its pace, we finalised the keynote speakers K.Narsi, my students and some friends came forward to volunteer, Rinni, Manish, Tarun, Hemant, Arun and Apurv actively supported me. The budget was still not clear until the last date. We worked day and night and nearly churned our mind to put everything in the place. Due to some personal issue, few speaker were not able to make it, finding

Effective Listening Do you the difference between hearing and listening? The good writer should have effective listening skills also. Do you want to know why? Every day I have to don many hats like Technical writer Reviewer ScrumMaster Webmaster Blogger Entrepreneur Tele Caller Counceller and of Course Father, Husband, brother, and Son To keep me going and do my job effectively one attributed on which I did mastery helps me to lot and that is listening. It helps me to experience the world in the better way. In this post, I have shared a few methods of effective listening. After reading this post you will be able to listen and grasp the words of speakers more effectively which will help you to become more sought after professional and lovable individual. it doesn’t matter you are a content writer, technical writer, blogger or any professional. We have to collaborate, we have to interact, we have to take feedback and we have to give feedback. We can not this effectively if we don’t have the patience and art to listen other. We face numerous challenges in our day to day life on the work, family and social arena, and if we summarize the cause behind it, the conclusion will be the lack of proper communication. In a communication somebody says and the other listens to it, but what goes wrong is the discrepancy in presentation and perceivance between the communicators. Listening effectively can reduce the ninety percent problems on every front we are dealing with. It can save money, time, conflict, and marriages. The problem arises when we are not able to understand what one is saying in its undiluted form, because of our preoccupied brain, lack of attention, a parallel thought running in mind, being judgemental etc. To develop the skill of listening we need to take care of a few things, and once we learn to listen we get through the whole thought one wants to convey. Technical writers have to listen very attentively while taking interview of subject matter expert, gathering information, taking feedback and on many occasions. So, listening is one of the key skill for technical writers in Bangalore, Pune or any part of the world. ·         Maintaining eye contact When we listen to someone its necessary to face the speaker and maintain eye contact. Speaking to someone who is scanning the surrounding, looking at the gadgets, is just like hitting a moving target. He is not getting even the tenth part of what is conveyed to him. As a listener, you must be present there and an eye contact helps in better communication even if the speaker is not looking at you because it may be influenced by his background, circumstances, and hesitance to face an audience etc. It doesn’t mean that it is always necessary to be physically present to listen effectively.  A good communication encourages and increases cohesion between the communicators otherwise one would leave it when the length of communication increases.                                                                                                                         ·         Be attentive We should be present mentally while listening, discarding out the distractions like background activities or noise. It is also important not to focus on the speaker’s accent or mannerism because it can distract us from our focus. Side-lining your own thoughts, beliefs, and prejudice while listening will make you a good listener. Be relaxed and focus on what is being said without adulterating it with your own thoughts. ·         Keep an open mind Don’t criticize mentally or judge the speaker for what he is saying. If you are alarmed, feel alarmed but don’t say in mind that it was an absurd thing, because as soon as you start judging, your effectiveness of listening is compromised. Don’t try to jump to conclusions because the speaker is speaking to represent his thoughts and feelings inside his brain which you are unaware of. The only way to understand someone thought and a feeling are to listen. Don’t try to interrupt and catch the sentence to complete it because you are following your own set of thoughts and the speaker’s thoughts are headed somewhere else. This will put you way off base and you will be unable to have a good understanding. ·         Wait before asking It’s not good to interrupt abruptly, wait for the speaker to pause and then ask for any clarification. Don’t impose your ideas or solutions. When someone is talking about his problem doesn’t start giving solutions right away. Most people don’t need your advice. They figure out their own solutions, listen to them and help to execute the solution. If you really have any chartbuster idea seek the speaker’s permission before delivering it. Interrupting conveys negative messages such as ‘I am more intelligent’, ‘I don’t care what you think’, ‘this isn’t a conversation, it is a contest and I am going to win’. ·         Ask relevant questions In a conversation don’t deviate from the topic asking irrelevant questions. This can deviate from the direction of what was being talked about. Sometimes we get back to the topic but in most of the cases, this doesn’t happen.  For example, someone is talking about the recent adventure he went through and the name of a mutual friend comes in the context and you deviate from the topic asking about him and his whereabouts, further leading to a different topic and the original conversation is left behind. In case this happens it is your responsibility to remind him to get back to the topic he was talking about. ·         Be empathetic Try to feel the feeling of a speaker.  To experience empathy put yourself in other man’s shoes and feel what it would feel if you were at his place at that moment. If you feel sad when the speaker expresses sadness, joyful when he expresses joy and fearful when he expresses fear, you are indeed an effective listener. It is a generous and helpful thing to do as it facilitates communication and increases the bond. It is not

Most of us directly get to the Google search engine and look for solutions whenever we encounter problems related to Google’s services including Gmail, Maps, Chrome, and YouTube. We visit various websites and keep hunting them until we get the best solution to our problems. But to facilitate your experience with its products and services, Google has come up with a website – Google Tips – that includes tips related to its wide range of services. Users can search for tips on a service/product. Tips are presented in the form of cards. Find a card based on your needs and flip it over to learn more. For instance, one of the tips under the Android sections is “Never lose contact with your contacts.” The moment you click on any card, it turns over and comes up with a detailed tutorial describing how to use a particular tip. Tips are presented in the form of cards. Find a card based on your needs and flip it over to learn more. Users can share tips with their friends and can also suggest tips to Google if they have any. You can simply click on “Suggest a card” button suggest a tip.

How to start as a technical writer- My Journey It is was a regular working day in the office until I received a call !!! a call that suddenly dragged me a few years back when I was struggling to start my life, once again. Once again because after getting a fitness certificate post series of 3 major and few minor operations only in few years, now I was allowed to sit for few hours and travel without any support, but it was advisable to carry a stick to prevent undue pressure on the fractured fumer and tibia and the implant incorporated in it. After getting a wellness certificate a big question that bogs me down was “what next”? Being a pharma graduate I was supposed to join marketing, R&D, production but all of these options were closed for me because at that time I was not physically fit for any this job in a nutshell pharma sector had closed the door for me. “What next”? What to do? Back to college again for masters or MBA? Will after selling out a few lakhs and years companies will hire me? Not sure. Already my parents were in debt due to my operation and sister marriage, so how much it was prudent for me to bet on higher education. I was not sure, then start looking for industries which can hire me…in this quest my brother –in –law (jija ji) asked me “if you can write in times of India and win a bike, why don’t you take writing as a full-time career”. Not a bad idea!!! An idea can change your life, it was then he introduced me to one of his friend sister who was then a tech writer in Nokia. After talking to her I was fully convinced this is the field where I will get job satisfaction and my love for word will sure help me to excel in this field. Again the question remains the same where to start from? Series of phone calls to the friends, friends of friends, and their friends to get a clue what is technical writing is all about, eligibility, future, growth, and many other questions and after getting every question answered, the battle starts to find a good institution from where I can start my journey as a writer. Few good institutes were there in the town at that time I was in Bangalore but their fees were not affordable for me, finally joined a small but good institution. when my syllabus was about to finish I start looking for a job, get my resume done, posted on different job portals, and finally, I get a call for an interview CALL !!! Yes, call from the same company whose representative call me today and that call motivates me to write this blog but yes nature and tone of the call were different. I appeared but I failed in that interview. Today just after a few years when I got a call from the same company with the offering for the post of project manager with handsome increment, the condition was only to handle there telecom domain projects. They lured me with all possible means to relocate to Bangalore. I hope this happened just because of the blessing of parents, god grace, and probably my never to die attitude, determination to come out from spare to sunshine. I believe when one door is close 100 open probably I’m one classical example of it. My only motto to write this blog to stand with those friends who are down due to some of the reasons, it is not at all self-promotional.

Juggle between Work, Home, and Studies Are you a working professional or a freelancer and you are feeling your greatest potential stress is juggling your work, study, and personal commitment? Does it seem to you that twenty-four hours in a day is less to complete your tasks? Feel you are not doing justice with your work, studies, and with your near and dears? Believe me, this is the most common problem faced by working folk who is continuing his studies. Well through this blog I am trying to share a few of my and my friend’s experiences and ideas which we have while doing MBA, probably any of the ideas can be of your help. Since we all different, we will also have different balance needs and we discover this through experience and self-reflection. Striking balance between work and study is a journey in which you have to travel alone, you will have to set realistic goals and consistently work toward them blogs can only give you an idea but you are the one who has to tailor them to meet your own specific needs. My few ideas: Idea 1: Know yourself To study effectively and excel in the work simultaneously, it is important to manage your time well. Good time management evolves by knowing yourself well, knowing what are your strength and weakness’ in time management, and then minimizing the weakness’ and working toward the right goal. Yes, you get it right I am talking about SWOT analysis. Remember time management is a skill that needs practice. In this process, you can also identify your major time-waster activities and take proper action to rectify it. Idea 2: Know the difference between urgent and important We are faced with jobs, errands, and works that require our immediate attention every day. Tasks from personal chores (cleaning clothes) to professional obligations (finishing the draft by 6 p.m.) weigh on our minds regularly. Trying to decide which to do can be a challenge. In this case prioritization of the tasks is required. You should be able to identify which is important and which is urgent for you. Which tasks are your time waster and which task you can procrastinate? Always remember apart from work you have to do well in your exams also. So do not let important turn into urgent. You are the best person who can identify what is important and what is urgent for you. Idea3: Stick with the basics We all have a preferred learning style like some makes notes some underline the books, some revise daily some do it weekly. Knowing and understanding our learning style helps us to learn more effectively. Through identifying your learning style, you will be able to capitalize on your strengths and improve your self-advocacy skills. So here I will like to suggest do not experiment a lot with your learning style, stick with the basic there is no reason you will not excel. Yes, change for the betterment is always welcome. Idea4: MMS (Man management skill) Hereby MMS I mean man management skill. Skill to say “NO” to your buddy for movies, skill to handle your boss who asks you to work on a Monday night when you have an exam the next morning. Realize that it’s okay to say no. Keep your short- and long-term priorities in mind. If phone calls from friend and relatives are proving to be a distraction, tell them that because of exams you take social calls from 6-7 p.m. It may sound silly, but believe dude it helps. Idea5: Take a break It’s a good idea to take a break from your daily routine after all you are not a machine. Once a while, why not to meet some of the relatives and enjoy with them to the fullest. Add some enjoyable activities in your day or weeks, it will rejuvenate you fill with energy. After you’ve completed a sizeable task, it’s a good idea to give a break to reward yourself. You can ring a friend, listen to music or can enjoy TV. Studies show short breaks actually improve productivity, so you’ll gain more than the time you lose by pausing for a moment. Apart from doing the things which you enjoy, also take a break to keep your self-fit. To keep one fit for the exam is also a part of exam preparation. So, friends, it’s all from my side. Hope you enjoy reading this blog. Thanks for stopping. Enjoy learning!!! Yours, Rahul Karn Related Post When determination meets fates.