The Crystal Ball

Technical communication in India could be an analytical topic today to talk about as to where the caravan is moving in terms of its past beginning, present strength and the future prospect. It is hard to collate the information about the beginning of this skilled profession on the yardsticks of its maturity and prevalence in terms of numbers of years in India. Subsequently, tracking the information about the industry which had the privilege to employ the technical communicator first into its fold, is another tough job.

However, notably the present scenario entails a lot about where the large chunks of technical communicators are employed today. They are mostly part of the documentation division of Information Technology industry in India. The seer number is quite difficult to arrive at because the employment ratio of software developer, tester and technical writer is not computed. In absence of that varying data, approximation helps, which gauge the range in between 4000 to 5000. Looking at the size of the industry, the future suggests that the number is bound to grow. Specifically Indian technical writers proving their metal that they can do exactly the same what developers and tester have done so far in terms of producing cost effective quality work. But it is not as easy as writing the piece of code, or testing the functionality of an application, that too in a foreign language. It is really a very difficult proposition and technical communication in India by far is in nascent stage to analyze correctly.

But if we look at the crowd, the substantial increase in the number of technical communicator hired and employed today, this profession looks very promising. As per my personal assessment goes, the technical documentation especially in India have been the complementary shoot of its parent company abroad which houses native English language technical writers. The obvious option as choice for Indian technical communicator is not yet ascertain.

Although, how do Indian technical writers fare on the parameter of quality of writing, is still in the phase of black box testing. The IT industry presently faces the dearth of technical writers and aspirant from writing or non-writing background are trying their luck to break into this profession. Experience in technical writing is another question, about which many falter, boast and try to override others. Many who boast more number of years spent in technical communication can not truly claim to be a better technical writer. Similarly less experienced communicator can not be under rated in terms of quality of writing. Technical communication is more of personal skilled area than a trained profession. The reason is, you can teach a person how to write codes in java in a year or two but writing good English takes years of toil. And, probably, writers can neither be created, nor be made, they just happened to be writers.

The crux is, technical communication in India would definitely have edge if true writers are willing to make it their career. Today, many sinners are in the garb of seers and separating them from the real seer would take some time as the profession grows and matures.

Above all, at the time when IT is facing the challenge of speculating faults from other industry and trying to contain, it’s testing time even for technical communication in India, which is directly proportional to the growth of the IT industry. How you look at the crystal ball today is the perspective defined and the brightness of ball would be the reflection of the light it receives

Thought: Catch if you can

When I read books I really wonder about the good ideas and thought produced by the author and can not really understand why all of us can not write like them. Why is that few individuals are bestowed with so much of brilliant ideas and artistic skills of writing to make it fascinating for the readers that once they hold the book in hand like to complete in one stretch provided there are no other hindrances bothering them. Why is that the beautiful language is theirs property only and not ours too? Can it be imbibed? Can it be copied?

If the ideas alone are the great gift of the writers, which comes pouring in terms of thought, I bet, even I will have hundreds of ideas to share which could be as creative and as brilliant as any of the published writers. My minds also runs millions of races everyday and goes dipper down the thought of human emancipation, societal differences, crosses political and geographical boundaries and feels as much as any other writer’s mind could do. Some times my beautiful thoughts could be better than some of the write-up produced and published by others which are at times looks boring and heavy to go ahead. I sometimes also feel more than any writer could feel. Yet, I am not able to produce a small write-up of extraordinary interest.

From within, as I feel good about myself to write about the things what I perceive, certainly I feel uncomfortable setting my dates and times to decide and put down my thoughts on the paper, may be in forms of small articles, story, poetry and essays or travel diaries. I fumble; say excuses, postponed for tomorrow. And that tomorrow never comes. Still hopefully wait for the other days for this to happen. But it does not happen on its own. Slowly the urge and feeling of writing dies down.

Then once gain, I feel I could have written what I thought to write about, but the idea is now faint. I force my mind to recall what I had thought of writing but even a small fraction of that does not come to my mind. I repent and feel sad and say to me myself, “had I written the same day, I could have made it good”. Several times I try the same thing but hardly have I had few to count on my credit to say that I have written some thing. Are these worthwhile to share with readers? Is the publisher willing to publish it for the public consumption? I do not know and I do not have answer for all these. Of course these can be critically assessed comparing the interest of the readers. Some trends are known and some are not, which are unusually new could be a first time trial too. This entirely depends on the judgment of the editors who knows the pulse of the readers better.

Well, I compared myself with the writers who have shown their brilliance in the public, but in reality I am nowhere near to them. This is when I realize that they have something what I do not have. They are better than me and that is why they are able to write what they feel. They are able to speak the human mind as if it could be in real life. Although, those could be merely the imagination of their mind. Some times these thoughts could be much ahead of the time, some times it could be not real at all, and some times it could be fictitious too. Yet they successfully articulate the web of words to catch the attention of the reader.

Yes! Some times I have put down my good ideas and that sounds really brilliant to me but compare to the way the legendary writers put, it is tasteless and it can not be the recipe of readers for good time to enlighten their mind and enjoy. Then I have another question, “What makes them good wordsmith?” Some times even the very known and simple facts what they write also becomes good food for the readers.

The big fact is to catch the flying thought and preserve them in whatever way you can. How can you do is the million dollars question. But you can devise some mechanism of your own for saving it in some format, may be in the form of an outline plot, an outline sketch or some points. So that you can catch them later, to put on the entire embellishment. Even then, I believe you will not be able to completely catch your original thought but at least better than losing them altogether. Writing of course is the work of toil. Try once, twice, thrice and many more times until you feel satisfied. Imagine, if you only are not satisfied, how can you satisfy your editor or for that matter your readers. No one has become good wordsmith overnight. Everyone has undergone the grinding.

So, the buzz word is: Thought. Catch if you can and act as a discovering wordsmith who has passion to see themselves reading through the minds of their readers.

Smiling Face is the Index of a Happy Person

Most of us know this fact yet how many of us consciously make an attempt to keep smiling face. It might be a graduation day’s group photograph or may be a family photograph in a studio where the photographer might have requested you to put your smiling face in the photographs to show the people and to see yourself smiling. Why is it important that we do not show our grumpy face to the world in a recoded form? Moreover we may also not like to see ourselves morose, sad, and dejected in the photograph. You may please take your time to think over it, what smile mean to you.

To some, it is like wearing sunglasses to protect your eyes from sun rays and eye contacts of other people. To some it is like applying sunscreen so that the heat of sunrays does not burn your skin. To many others, it might mean differently. What does it mean to you? It may seem quite awkward if someone puts this question across you, but do you really smile? What if you don’t smile? Does this make any difference?

My suggestion is, you must smile and make people smile on you. Smile is one of the best assets and greatest attribute one has if one happens to be happy. It is having magical touch to reduce your pain, disappointment and feelings of being failure.

Remember, when you were born and smiled first to the responses of your parents. It gave them unlimited joy and they were elated when you kept on answering them with your toothless smile. Ask them how happy they were? Your smile might have given them a pleasant parenthood and to you, persona of a happy child.

When you grew up young and needed companion and friends, your smile brought them close to you. You might have made lots of friends by your pleasant smile. Unknowingly you developed a wonderful quality what makes you win so many friends and foes. It gives you greater advantage over the others.

Your smile is the index of your personality which makes you a lovable person. Be it working place or public place, your smile gives an access for others to approach you freely, in turn you reach greater number of people. Your smile calms down the anger of your boss and lessens the fright of your juniors.

Smile keeps your cheek muscles healthy and flexible. You give a look of forties when you are really in fifties.

Wherever you are, your smile breaks the hesitation to approach the strangers also. You are likely to get the reply of smile by a smile, except a few occasions. If you want to reply to a question neither positive nor negative, you need not worry, just smile. Your negative answer may show disappointment on your friend’s face. Well! You may smile on those occasions.

Nothing can be better than a smile on your face to show the affection. Your wide smile always gives a gesture of respect and welcome.

Think if everyone stops smiling on each others! Would anyone live in such a way? Certainly not! Life will become a burden. Ask a lover, how much important is his smile to meet and greet his beloved one. Ask a husband, how much important is his smile to win a favour and co-operation of his wife. Observe a child how he negotiates with his parent with his smile for a favour.

Smile is also appreciation. Your parents give you a smile if you do a commendable job. Your teacher’s smile boosts you to excel in your career path. Without a word it conveys millions what you suppose to receive when you achieve a milestone in your life. It is a great tonic of progress. Without this there is no joy of success.

When you receive a smile you owe to give smile. So maintain give and take policy and live smiling forever.

People say smiling face is the index of a happy person. Be happy and make people happy around you. Let us not miss the world of smile and let the world not miss your innocent smile. You may well spread the good news across what a smile mean to you.

Remember my suggestion and keep smiling!

Does smile costs anything? To me, it doesn’t cost. But who knows, throwing a smile for a person might be hiring trouble or inviting an unpleasant situation. The meaning of smile in today’s world is very complicated to understand. That’s how sometimes a pleasant person dons the gesture of a grumpy personality. Well, if you feel my suggestion is not suitable for you to like and love the world with your smile freely, be judicious, be choosy and selective, but do not be grumpy.

Freedom of smile is not free; it is actually to use it free. So, be careful and smile.

Even if you forget to wear sunglasses and apply sunscreen, please don’t forget to smile.

Smile please!

Changing Time for Technical Writers

Technical documentation can take a spiral web of describing complex concept and special terminology to suit the specific audience. Although, this is a well known fact, but to transform your writing from the simple steps writing for a procedure to describe a scientific concept in cutting edge technology, which is just defining, could take a tough toll at time. Visibly for a new writer, it could be nightmare to understand the subject and write about them. Even for that matter, the experienced writers would struggle.

However, understanding of the subject and relating the entire steps, procedures and concepts into a meaningful perfect document is the real challenge for a technical author to test their writing ability. The very purpose of creating document is to preserve the knowledge to use for the larger audience or the customers. These customers could be the internal or the external ones. The aim of the documents changes according to the requirements. If you thought that technical writing means writing Users Guide, Installation Guide and Help files, then this is the time to think once again thoroughly and understand the requirement of technical writers in the industry. Probable you will not be restricted to writing these manuals only. You will be tested writing many more things such as requirement documents, white papers or the technical articles. Technical writer’s job is not merely going to be defined as about writing guides.

If you look at the entire job spec, which is slowly becoming clear, I bet, industry will have really tough time getting good writers. All those who thought that technical writing is all about knowing few of the writing and publishing tools and to know how to write a user manual then its better track your career now unless it is too late to mend your ways. When I made transition into technical writing knowing word processing and publishing tools were supposed to be the most important requirement. Now that is dying down, rather corporations have learnt that tool can be taught but not the art of writing.

Many consider technical writing as an art as well as a science. It is true that technical writing alone can not be an art because if you do not understand the science and technology about which you are supposed to write, it can not make you fare well. You can not consider it science either, even if you are convinced that it is based on style guides for paragraph, page layout and graphics unless you are able to present the information as the weaver of the words. To me, technical writing is an art to write about the science. I am sure; all of us will have different way of defining it and opine our voices on this subject.

One more aspect which is conceived arbitrarily is the concept that technical writers get knowledge from the subject matter expert and transform that knowledge into simple, legible and easy information for the end users. Domain hardly plays any barrier for the writers because knowledge is preserved into the written format by the subject matter experts and they too are available for any discussion or clarification whenever required. This is the normal way of functioning of the large corporation where every thing is documented because of fear that the employees leave jobs without passing the full information and knowledge to the juniors and colleagues. The cost involved in the process and the time required is such that many a time it deviates the product release. The seer fact is that people who are forced to write these documents do not have good skills of writing and quite natural that it would take more time yet you can not be sure of quality. This does not include exceptions.

The smaller organization, which recognize this fact stresses that if a developer is involved in writing so many documents then they should very well write the user documents too. They believe that in such cases the role of a Technical Writer is just to collate and present the information in a better way. Definitely language cleaning is another area where more emphasis is given. But this is not all that expected from a technical writer. According to them, technical writer should collect the information on their own with different sources and that would let developer write only such information which can be understood by the fellow developer and in turn that will give them more time to complete their job faster. Subsequently technical writer will write the document, which will allow them to be involved more to understand the subject and in the process they would be enriching their knowledge in the domain.

One more concept, which suggests that a technical writer should not worry more about the domain, seems relatively not to be a good idea. “The domain knowledge is not necessary, wherever they go, they learn the terms of the trade”, sounds bit odd to me. Meaning you work in telecommunication domain and tomorrow you make a change in life science domain, I precisely feel the time taken to understand the new domain would put you back for some time. It could even be a bottleneck to prove your effectiveness in writing if you have not assessed it early. It might also hamper your growth too in a new setting because you are going to be rated freshly in a new environment. Well, this again is a personal preference, some can manage everything well and for some this could really pose a problem. The advice is to look at your strength and act.

For small product development company, “Speed” is the hallmark and that puts them in advantageous position comparing its larger adversaries, which ride on the back up of money, manpower and management. Looking at the scenario it seems that it is testing time for the technical writers to prove their worth in changing environment. Otherwise also if the industry has to be dependent upon the technical writers, they need to be mature enough to handle different situation. Ideally if they are able to handle such situation the pay cheque would not be a constraint. So, the catch is “show your competence to prove yourself”.

Peer Review in Writing

I do not hesitate to say that all writers love their writing and because they love their writing they produce some good write-up for their audience to read. Anyways, however good is the write-up, writers are expected to have some message from the readers. May be good, bad or ugly, but they are sure to get some reviews. It is obvious that readers when they read, they look from their own perspective and the writers when they write, they tend to write from their own perspective. But, true writers write from their reader’s perspective and live in their characters. However, this is an issue of subjective discussion and opinion would entirely differ from reader to reader and from writer to writer.

There would be some readers who would proclaim writer's work as piece of rubbish, non-standard, anti-social, anti-national or whatsoever it may be. There would be some readers who would applaud and appreciate the courageous, bold, emphatic writing bringing truth out. These are two kinds of rave reviews writers are ought to get on their work. These are again based on the wish of the writers to choose the subject to discuss in their writings. Yet, whatever writers write, they truly adore their writings and to be the subject of criticism and ridicule is at time not digestible for them.

The question is, being a writer, how can you save yourself from the criticism. No, you can not, and its better you start accepting criticism and understanding the message of your readers or else there will be a time when there will be no message for you. It is true that only when you are read, you have messages. It is also true that you are writing because you are being read and you are writing for your readers. My friend, ‘Roy Arsenal’ rightly once said, “if you want to write your own thing better buy a diary from the market and write but if you are writing for an audience understand them and write for them."

This challenge always bothers writers. What is the way out? Love your writing but do not hesitate to share with your peer and friends who can lend some input and peer review in to your work. It is better to be ridiculed and criticized and shape and reshape your write-up before you produce that to your audience. A true and honest peer review is always good for your writing. The bigger challenge is to find a good and competent peer, who will review your work. But, whoever you are handing out your work, they will have at least their own angle to look into it. At least that input will help you a lot.

As a writer many people wants to try out writing many different things. To some extent you can be good in writing one specialize areas of writing but you need not be good at all things altogether. This depends on the choice of your writing. Some are good in writing poetry, story, report, extempore, essay and many other forms of writing but none can be perfect in all sorts. Yes, but no harm in trying your hands as a writer. Well, you can fall on your peer to give you a good and critical advice to bring out a good second draft.

Yes! I am hoping my story to come out good because I have got a brilliant piece of unbiased review from my friend ‘Roy Arsenal’. This is my first try to write a story.

Citizen Journalists and the Bloggers

There are two segments of writers who have been immensely popular with advent of Internet, that opened the opportunity for them to express their views on several web media. These are Citizen Journalists and the Bloggers. If we look at both these writers in their individual capacity and perspective of selling their write-up, they have all the ingredients into their write-up to be saleable and appealing. Then the question obviously arises, what stops them to be the writer in traditional media. May be the lack of platform to launch themselves and sustain continuously.

However, there is another element also that contribute to the fact they can not show allegiance to a particular ideology, person, community or organization, which at times can be a limiting factor for them to be the part of the traditional media. Traditional media by and large run by some guided principles of some ideology, group or the organization, may be political or apolitical. Whatever the bold face they show to be independent and impartial, it is well understood by the people that they are not.

Moreover, people have their own views and they are stung by inspiration to hear, read and listen to the news and views that they like to hear. For the people, unbiased opinion from media is impossible because that is run by a set of people and who have their own ideology, which reflects into their writing. Therefore, people in the media support a particular ideology to feed the desire of certain sets of people in public, which suit their liking or disliking. Rightly once described by a traditional media punch line, “We bring the news what people wants to know”. Don’t take any other meaning of it. This is nicely intended to bring you the news to satisfy your psych. You want certain politician to be cowed down, business people to be called the blood sucker of the society, police to be branded the biggest criminal in uniform and many more. All that might be there in the media, which you choose to hear or listen to.

In spite of the prevailing fact, there are some people in the public who are in belief that media means the truth and writers are the custodian of society to fight corruption, rights of the people and disparity by way of their writing. I would doubt any such writer and media exist in this world. However, there have been some speedy changes obvious that Internet has provided platform for writers on citizen journalism web site and on the blog site to post their blogs. That have led the way as an opportunity for even the commoners to air their views and prevailing state of reality which is guarded by the so called press. Everyone has equal opportunity on the Internet.

Citizen journalism has existed in the pocket areas of the globe from the long time and it was because of outcry of the left out issues of the people and apathy of the authority to address that. However, not much was seen in terms of popularity or in terms of being a stakeholder in the media. But Internet has changed the face of it by providing every netizens a chance to be a citizen journalist and to be a part of the movement.

Today, there are many citizen journalism sites, which offer you the challenge of being an acclaimed writer. Type the word in google and you get hundreds of sites in different regions. The beauty is that these citizen journalism sites might be part of regional news and views, yet they have global presence by default. It is here that someone who wants to realize their dream of being unbiased and independent can do so to some extent. Although, these sites provide you ample opportunity to be the writer of the spelling truth; it does not provide you the earnings of the traditional media.

Blogging is another new opportunity for writers of all sorts to try their hands in different forms of writing to be the feed for the readers who look for the beauty on the Internet. You need not spend money having your site to post your blogs, you get it free of cost. Freedom of expression is that you can write anything and everything abiding by the compliance of Internet policy which does not allow you to hurt the feelings of the people of any region, use hate and defame people by name without having enough evidence. This freedom is free to use and not to misuse.

Today, around 10 million bloggers are running their blog site around the globe. I agree that most of them are inactive. But still the active blog sites are enough for the people to keep them busy on the net. Some bloggers are such brilliant writers that even the professional writers will have to shy away comparing their writing with them. In modern times, bloggers are giving tough competition to the traditional writers.

If analyzed, citizen journalists and bloggers are the ones, who have bigger stake in the Internet media. The message is loud and clear that so called writers have competition and it is not only with a few. There are many standing face to face and many in waiting. Be the part of the revolution, if you like writing. It cost you nothing except your time and thought but it might make a difference.

Writing: A passionate hobby

Hobby is what we like doing and enjoy while doing it. Definitely what we like doing is driven by some kind of urge, which to me, is passion. Passion brings richness to our heart, feeling of happiness, satisfaction of our mind and accomplishment of unintended milestones. Passions could bring the perfection and attainment of super height of achievement and deeper feelings of contentment. I bet, passion means many things to many people but nothing less than the excellence, which is ought to be there. Again the degree of excellence will vary depending upon the time spent on our passionate hobby.

I personally believe that writer neither can be created nor can be made, they just happened to be the writer. To some extent, I too believe that writers are born writers and remain hidden until they discover themselves that they can write. Writers too are different human beings and think differently from their peers, friends, soul mate and the society as a whole. Most of the writers begin their journey of penning down their first write-up or article and making their first appearence only when their feeling bursts out of their mind and wants to find a channel to vent this out. They write and communicate this to media for the public consumption.

As a first time writer, it is more of inquisitiveness and nervousness that write-up is published or not rather than the purpose accomplished through it. This is the time when one realizes the potential of his / her own writer and rate themselves honestly. Not that this is the first time they have written something worth or expressed something in their write-up. They very well know that they wrote many successive exam papers while they cross over their academics and the score and grade speaks volume about the fact that they can write.

However, this is the first time they might be facing the public through their write-up and nervousness is bound to bother them. But what they discover is something they never knew, believed and noticed until the day they saw their first write-up published.

Most often our writing hobby takes this route to surface in our image and we outgrow from the tag of being first time writer to be the writer first. But to some, the professional praise does not come so early. They do not get published at very first occasion. Do you think the fire of their passion dies down? If they truly love writing and if it is not just as a casual approach, they keep striving hard unless they prove their metal. In both the cases it is well found hobby, which one like to pursue.

To me, writing as hobby, I have cherished from the time I began reading (except the textbooks). I truly envy good writers who write beautifully with clear thought and good language. Though envy but love to read them, imbibe good arts of writing from their creation, love to appreciate them through reviews written for them. The good part of the whole episode is, writer look good when their writing is appreciated and loved by the reader. The internal beauty is more on display than their external beauty; rather external beauty does not matter at all for them. They are not judged as person because of their personality but because of their writing. An ugly looking person can be a beautiful writer and his or her beauty will be judged by their writing and not by their looks. Writing describes of being beautiful than looking beautiful.

Passion for writing percolates bringing out uncontrollable emotions, language of beautiful mind, dormant and oppressed people’s opinion, their inner voice, challenges of life, and many more things. Writing can create an everlasting impact on readers mind and it can be stored for longer time. Even if the readers write them off as rubbish, it remains as reference material.

As a hobby, writing is also a medium of self-expression. Many untold things can explicitly be the part of your writing; many contradictions have a place in your writing. The good part is that you say many things without facing the crowd. All this thing I intend to do with my writing too. I agree that I am not an acclaimed writer and have not been published as yet, but there is no harm taking writing as my passionate hobby. At least I will have no complains shying away from my self-expression.

Is writing your Obsession?

Yesterday, around 10:30 at night, I called up one of my friends to learn about his job search run and the outcome of it after a month’s hunt. But surprisingly, Roy Arsenal, the one and only die-hard Arsenal fan I know, one of our good friends, answered the call. Roy is working for a news outsourcing company where he is handling four countries news editions, meant to be packaged for the sailors in the sea. Roy is not a man to be explained in few words or in few sentences. He is endowed with enormous quality and competence and virtually can learn any of the skills if it is of his liking. If he thinks he can do this, he does that.

A workaholic, passionate poet, football lover, voracious reader, Roy was not mature in mind to decide for his life to take up the job of his liking or to say even the opportunities were not that great those days when he started looking for the job.

Many of us when we were looking for sound job in those days with good money; Roy had made it in one of the Call center when there were only a few in the market or say during the beginning of the outsourcing business days. He was fast in work and popular choice on the floor. He was one of the few trusted employees who can pitch in any time for the skill display to salvage the prestige of the employer or getting a new business lead in terms of employee’s asset. And then on, one after the other, he kept on changing job with good money. Job was never a constraint for him.

Though, envious we were with each other on professional fronts, yet we were getting close on our selective choices. He loved reading and I too, he loved discussing many things on and off and out of the bound, may it be rubbish, ridiculous or highly thoughtful and most of the occasion I was there to say my rubbish and listen to his thought provoked talks. Most of the occasion, we used to be in different worlds of moods and swings where inhibition had no choices.

I clearly recall, working for a monthly magazine as a Special Correspondent and Research writer, I was hardly meeting my monitory needs and struggling to maintain my job. Whereas, Roy was royal and doing well, though he will not budge with his life for the sake of job. Amidst all, the days we pass together, I could feel Roy wants to get into writing. But he hardly spoke to me about his plans. Only when I left Delhi he started looking for a job in writing. Tough as it always would be because the writing world is filled with more pseudo writers who would not welcome a original writer even though a beginner in to its domain.

Roy struggle, stumble, falter but never said no to his choice of new found love in writing profession. The more he felt dejected, the more he became tougher and his conviction grew stronger to take on challenges. After all how long any one can deny the opportunities once you have the talent in you. Roy freelanced, blogged, stormed and blew the wind and stirred the undercurrent with some of his write-ups. He sustained with his meager savings and paltry earnings before he became the editor of the professional news agency.

Roy continued writing in many forms, for different audience. Last night when the drink was taking him high and shyness was blown off, came in a closely guarded secret. He no longer wants to remain on the payroll of the few business houses to survive as a writer. Bravo! The writer has finally got up from the slumber and wants to fight out and carve his niche. He works on his own project after his office hours, from night 8 PM to 4 AM in the morning. He precisely knows that spare time will never come into his life unless he makes it. Yes! The obsession of writing is working for him. He is madly in love with his writing.

He said, “I do not want to repent at the end saying that I never tried, at least I would be happy having tried. Rest I do not know.” As he puts cautiously, I can read between the lines his hidden ambition and silent attack. Whether he says or not I am going to say that he is going to make it big. When? I have no answer and even he will have no answer now. But I am sure his obsession of writing is going to take him as high as the towering mountains and as deep as bottom of the oceans.

May be Roy’s obsession is haunting my writer to be obsessed. Why don't you find out your writer in yourself?

The opportunities in writing career

Wordsmiths were never in demand so much as they are now. Call it an opportunity because of the Internet. In fact, Internet is nothing but all about the content. Better the content on web, better is the traffic and higher is the ranking. Its all about how many visitors visit your site and rate your content. Thats how Internet works for anything and everything. Beyond, there is much more to it. But, of course, the contents are specific related to the subject. However, the core skill is to write it in legible language and present that in to a form that even six-grade reader can understand well.

If I am not wrong, traditionally writers were highly sought after in the Journalism, that too in print Journalism and publication as an editor or a proofreader. But with the advent of Internet the horizon has grown beyond the country and community. A writer can be anywhere and can be writing for anyone in any part of the world. An Indian writer can get published by an American publisher in America.

Similarly, there are many form of writing which is used to be done by some of the subject expert in the field is now at offering to the professional writers because of fast paced, time bond target to finish a project. A professional writer can always add value to the document. Speed, accuracy, good style, and grammatically correctness in language are the business assets for the writer who can make difference in today’s world.

Based on the Industry they work and kind of writing they pursue, writers can be classified into some major categories, yet these are not all. There may be many more tag that might be in making depending upon the kind of writing they would be pursuing in the future. Some of them are:

Journalist: Traditionally they are the writers, who write for different news papers, news magazines and are supposed to be the eye and ear of people and government. People expect them to carry their voice to the government or the concerned authority in need. Similarly government needs them to reach to the people with right kind of message. From the ages Journalists have been respected and has a great reputation and command in the society. However, very few have lived up to their expectation. In today’s media influencing world, they are highly in demand but their reputation are challenged, because of patronizing of the media group with which they are working. They are no more seen to be an independent voice. Yet, this form of writers will always be in demand.

Copy Writer/ Editor: Copy writers are those who require to develop an idea on certain fixed topic and develop certain script for a specific purpose. Similarly Copy editors are required to have excellent grammatical and sentence construction skills to make a horrible write-up into a readable piece of writing. These writers are greatly in demand for script writing in advertising and film industries. Apart from this they have a bigger role in the publication industry.

Technical writer: Technical writers are the discovery of recent industrial world where they bridge the gap to educate user through their writing about the technology and the product. They make the complex process into simple steps of the subject for the easy understanding of the user, where by they can use the product or perform certain tasks without human interference. Technical writers are hired in most of the industry today. Their roles are to prepare different technical document for the industry use.

Content Writer: Content writer’s job is the very recent demand in the writing opportunity, which is entirely because of Internet. People and company wants professional writing to be done for their web site, which describe about their products and services. Today, merely a web site is not enough to have an Internet presence. A web site nicely designed and presented with wonderful content can create unimaginable face value. Mind you, toady, to know about a company or the person, everyone logs on to the web pages and try to understand at the first hand information. Therefore, You may very well understand the importance of good content on the web site. Content writers can add great value to your image.

Medical Writer / Scientific Writer: Writers who have formal educational and training in Medicine or Science are mostly encouraged to take up this role because of their understanding of the domain knowledge. But due to ever soaring demand for writers even other stream background writers are tried who can learn the terms of the trade faster and use it judiciously.

Patent and Regulatory writer: These writers are basically legal expert who understand subject well. The accuracy of knowledge with articulate use of legal words is the main crux of the writing. Though, tough to train, this writing is very challenging and highly paid for.

Ghost Writer: Ghost writers are always in demand. They are the evergreen people who help millions being at the backdrop. Their role includes writing for different person adopting their style. Most of the Ghost writers help high profile people who has weak command on writing or lack of time.

Financial Writer: This again is the specific writing, which requires domain expertise and educational training. Most of the people who can understand financial subject well can make a good writer. Yet again, there is no yardstick for the writers who are quick in understanding a subject. They can be brilliant asset in any industry. Their writing ability and quick learning skills are big plus for industry as well as for the writer himself/ herself.

These are few forms of the writing, which largely employ or provide work for today’s writer. May be some more form would be in making in the future. However, what form of writing you choose to make career of your own is the question you should ask yourself and may be try writing where you suit well and what you like doing again and again. But, certainly if you like writing and write well, you have a place here.

Why do you write?

This is very awkward question. However, this question is not out of the box. People tend to ask you such questions when they know that you are in to writing and how you can be different from their profession, if they are holding on to something else for making their living. At the same time, you are also not oblige to answer this question but to be able to clear yourself and be able to understood by the larger crowd it is always good to have your reasons stated forward. That makes your life much easier and gets you off from the stupidity of this question. I know this question at a time can be very unpleasant yet the escape is difficult.

There are many good reasons for people to write and a few bad too. These reasons vary from people to people. Some people who are good at creating any form of writing and that has got market, he makes a living out of his writing. These are called the professional writers. There are other writers also who write but not for their living. Their profession is different from the one which they like doing i.e. writing. And if we compare the numbers of professional writers versus not the professional writers or amateur writers, I bet the later would outnumber the former. Especially with the emergence of Internet and Web Media the horizon have expanded horizontally and vertically in sheer numbers.

The professional writers have better place in the traditional media, publication houses, government and private firm’s documentation and communication department. On the other hand, amateur writers are driven by their whims and wishes, and write things of their mind. Obviously, amateur writers have been welcomed mostly in the new found media on the Internet, be it Citizen Journalism, Content writing, Product journalism, Blogs, or many other things, which are on the offerings every other days. I fall in to the category of amateur writer who happened to find a place in the professional writing world. The reason: the opportunity available in the job market and I could prove somehow that I can write. Otherwise also I like writing, so the job is of my liking.

As an amateur writer what drives you to write and publish on the Internet is really an interesting question. Most of my close encounters with my colleagues and acquaintances have provided me the bunch of their ideas as to why they want to write. Some of the ideas are really thought provoking and enlightening, some are humorous, some witty, and some of them aim to achieve something in life through their writing.

To one group, the idea to write is to make a statement, to share thoughts, to express themselves and finally to make a living! Though this is difficult proposition yet achievable. To many of the writers, they live with their writings but can not make decent living by writing. This fact is hard but has truth.

The second group, want to write and publish because they enjoy doing and that gives them an opportunity to think through an issue and provide new insight through their writing. They feel writing force them to think and make them more creative.

Third group believes that others writing are corny, so clean the bin with better writing. Moreover it’s a good way to improvise their English and the write-ups are saved on the Internet and can be re-used. They want to create something that might last longer than them.

To some writing is the expression of nostalgic thoughts, which otherwise can be lost. Writing supposed to be the best methods to record your say, others opinion, your imagination of future, your perspective of present and a criticism of past.

Some write to help or to enable people: To clarify, make something complex simple, to teach so that people can do things for themselves, be safer, may be even happier.

Some write as an expression of love: I love this world, the possibilities and beauty of it. They remain hopeful that we all might just somehow manage to get along without killing or hating each other. We might manage our ecosystem in such a way that equilibrium is maintained. Or, there would be one world where there will not be rich and poor divide. Truly, utopian to the core!

A little further, some write because they feel when they write they are honest to themselves. They create their own image and express themselves and in the process they believe that some part of their thought reaches out to the world and possibly touches the world to create small ripples of goodness.

To little extent some actually do write to create propaganda, confusion, ill effects and spread rumors. Though this kind of writing has immediate impact to a certain extent but does not have long lasting effect. It diminishes with the time. Whereas, good writing, always creates everlasting impact on our mind.

To some the meaning of writing might still be in formation stage and it will come up beautifully with the passage of time and with the blossom of season. Anyway, we all have a place in the world of writing; we just need to create it.

Your Strength of Writing

Is writing your strength? If your answer is yes! There is another question for you to ponder upon and answer yourself. What is the strength of your writing? Or, rather, what are the strengths of your writing? I believe these questions are very straight and you might be having very straight answers to these questions. Some of you can start listing down the answers as soon as these questions are put across.

Many of us can list down: Good Command over the language, Good Knowledge of Grammar and sentence construction, Good Vocabulary and list goes on. Many of us believe that we can achieve creating a good piece of writing if we have these ingredients as our weapon to use. To a great extent we are quite correct in our approach. However, we will be missing the larger picture if we don’t have the good thinking. To me good writing is about good thinking.

The powerful writing is not merely the selection of some special words, but the formation of good thoughts. This is the difference between an elegant prose written by a renowned author and an amateur writer. You may call it a great writing! It is in fact great thinking. To achieve any emotion and passion, words must reflect value-added thought. The reflection of good writing can be a visual part in any form, be it script, an article, an essay, an advertisement or a user manual.

Writers sell their writing because what they write about and not how they write it. Moreover this is a controversial statement and many of the people would not agree with me. But the point what I want to make is the content in your writing. Readers like to read piece of your writing because of your content. If the content is important, have appeal, value and mesmerizing effect, it is bound to sell.

Whereas if you have created writing and have made a brilliant display of your impeccable language skills but failed to address what are you trying to say through your writing then there is something missing. Do you believe it will create any interest among the readers? I doubt. Reader will lose interest in the middle and switch over to something else. So, a brilliant piece of language would not really sell.

For that matter, even the good content written in poor manner with grammatical mistakes and with poor presentation will not enthuse a reader to go through the end of the write-up. Therefore, the message is, a good writing should have a good content and good language.

So, your writing has to be a mix of good thought and good language. The question is how can you have both in your writing. Mind you, it’s not an easy task. But nothing is impossible. What should be the best practice to emulate these in our writing, which can add value to our writing legacy and command respect from the readers. The two principles what has worked for me very effectively are: critical thinking and rigorous editing.

I create my article with many passes. These passes are nothing but visiting and re-visiting the write-up for editing until I get satisfied that my message can get through the reader well. You can have a look how it goes.

First pass: Write down my thought without any hindrances.

Second pass: Categories the paragraph and reshuffle it up and down to create a real good story in readable format.

Third Pass: check for the language legibility, spellings and errors.

Fourth pass: Look into the article with intent to search for the inner beauty—Is it appealing to the reader?

Fifth pass: Go through hurriedly to note that even casual reading can make you understand the content of the write-up.

Sixth pass: Do you see any value in the write-up?

If satisfied, then finally passed to publishing. Off course these are my working steps, which has worked in favor of me for past few years at least creating a face value as a writer. It might work with you as well. Give it a try or else get a good working steps of your own which can establish you to be a better writer. Choice is anyway yours.

You’re writing on the Internet

The world has evolved and progressed with advancement of technology. Technology arm man with tools for different purposes what he requires. And these tools are result of human imagination towards achieving higher, faster, and greater milestones in any field. One such milestone, which brought world closer with a mouse click, is the world of Internet. The invention of Internet has revolutionized the world of communication by leaps and bounds.

Connecting all the computers of the world through a world Wide network is the most modern gift of science to the human being. People can communicate with one another across the country effectively via their websites, emails and blogs. Communication has never before been so easy and cheap as it is now. It has even grown beyond this. The great social networking sites and great opportunity for anyone to store data online are other gifts. Innovations are still on to provide some more opportunity in the future.

The core communication of the Internet is written language except the voice chat. Entire web pages are filled with written messages to communicate to specific audience. Naturally your written skills play a very important role communicating on the Internet. Whether you write an email, or a scrap, or a blog post, everywhere your writing is the index of your image. Language is not the barrier any more and you can choose to write in any of the important languages of the world listed with the Internet. However, the world of Internet largely understands English and respect the users most, who use this language, broadly because of this being the most popular international language.

This does not mean that you command least respect when you write in your mother tongue. But obviously it speaks the truth that you are here to communicate to the audience who belongs to your nation and speaks the same tongue. This specifically communicates that you are trying to reach to your community and this is the best language you can use to communicate effectively.

The reach of Internet has been so wide and varied that people from Jhumari Tilaiya to Tumbaktu write on the web pages and send email to their friends, relatives and whomsoever they want. Most of the people use English language on the net irrespective of being native or non-native speaker. English is the most obvious choice because most of us want to pose a brave international face on the Internet. At one hand this is really appreciating, whereas on the other hand it is disappointing that a messy, unclear writing puts off reader and fails to impress the audience with its content. Most of the people try to get the thought and idea correctly and in the process miss the grammar and way of presenting it, which at a time makes different sense if not used judiciously.

Good writing always attracts good appreciation and wins half the battle in business as well as on the personal front, solves our problem. Good writing is not only about putting bare thought and concept but putting it across correctly without any error. People judge you here by virtue of your writing skill and since they have not met you before this is the only face you have. Your writing can connect people if it is legible, direct, focused and simple. To your people your writing is you. This is what the importance of writing, is on the net.

Eventually Internet is filled with good and bad writing, be it in any form. But the experience of years says that filthy, slang and poor writing no more appeal the Internet users. The Internet users now look beyond the personal identification, which reflects in your writing. You create a sense of confidence among the audience if you are trying to reach out for a writing profession. Such kind of opportunity is flooded on the net. I might discuss these in some other post. But the bottom line is your writing can make or break your image on the net if you are not cautious.

Reading helps Writing

A writer is a good reader himself. I have come across this statement quite a number of times. Frankly speaking, I realized very late the potential of being reader could enlighten the spirit of writing in me. In fact I can write and I want to write itself took long time for me to understand. As usual, like numerous Indians who are not aware what they want to do with their life, what they are interested into and what they want to become, I too was indecisive about my life.

In reality, what you want to do and what you are ought to do are two things, which literally makes you think before taking a step in life. You are ought to be in a profession which earns you livelihood, is the first thing you are supposed to be doing than the next what is close to your heart in our context. If what you dream to do, is what you do, and that gives you livelihood, then you are the luckiest soul. Else, bury your idea to follow your dream. This is nothing but the opportunity available for you. But if the opportunity really exists, will you have the right skills to chase your dream is another question. For example you want to break into writing, but can you write effectively.

Ask hundred people whether they want to write something or not. Ninety out of hundred times you will find the answer that people want to write something. Every one of them has some message to convey to the world or to the small crowd to which they belong to. Sometimes, they simply want to write their diary. Once you write and if your writing is published, it adds into your joy. Suddenly you discover that you can write and you can express your ideas across. That is when you feel you can take a chance in a writing career.

But, writing is not as easy as many of us might think. Good knowledge of language, grammar and even good selection of words can not guarantee you to be a good writer. Many people speak eloquently without any hesitation. However, if they are asked to write the same things what they speak, many of them would struggle. Because putting down something as coherent sentences is a difficult act. I bet, to do that, some special impetus is required.

I recall my first encounter when I began writing. The first shot was a letter to the editor of a science magazine. Successful, with moderate editing it was published. Then on, whenever felt like expressing my views, kept on writing to different magazines, news papers and most of the cases it published except on a few occasions when my idea was preconceived and supporting particular ideological group.

Over the period of time I have learned to express in writing what I want to say. Though, not very accurately but most of the time I have been able to narrate the point what I want to say. The pivotal point of my writing have been the input I have gathered while reading others writing. Consciously or unconsciously, other’s writing has contributed immensely in my writing also. I have learnt the art of expression, narration, arranging the content and creating a style of my own. That has purely come to me because of reading other's creation. The more you read, the more you evolve as a writer.

Truly, writing requires empathy. The personal experiences and the view point has greater role to play while you write. Rightly once said by one of the writer, “Reading is an education and writing is a pleasure one shares.” There is no substitute to this fact.

To many of the writers beyond anything reading and writing make life more colorful, intriguing and interesting. Seeing their writing published makes one feel happy more than anything else, as they are likely to reach a larger audience. When I read the comments posted by the reader on my writing, it provides me different dimension of thoughts on my write-up. In my opinion, to write effectively and beautifully, one needs to read more good pieces of writing. The revelation and expression of your inner beauty comes out naturally in your writing and you do not tend to emphasize on it. That’s the wonderful effect of reading to writing.

As they saw India

India has been the destination for the travelers from ages. Many have written their travelogues as they saw India during their time. As usual these travelogues are not free from biases. The travel writers have always seen India with prejudices and pre-conceived ideas what they carried even while they traveled. Hardly any one have done any justice to describe what true India is all about. Americans, Europeans and many others have seen India comparing with their nation and its people. None of these travelers have seen India from an Indian’s perspective.

The mystic land of India, off late has been quoted as land of poor, farmers, beggars and snake charmers. Ancient travelers nevertheless were more truthful in their expression than the English colonial masters. The perception about India in today’s world is because of the image created by these so-called travelers who consider themselves the masters of everything. Even few non-resident Indians find the place not worth living yet they feel more about it. Their love and hate for the country is another dream of the nation what they want to carve comparing the other developed nation. Some of the people in the world whose lineage connects them to this land are both averse and attached emotionally. If you happened to read V S Naipaul, he wants to be away from India in his writing consciously, but unconsciously more he does that, more he is drawn towards this country of his fore fathers. Why is this love and lust?

In spite of the tarnished image created in the world about India and its people, still it attracts people across the world who want, at least, once in their lifetime to visit India. What make them feel so special about India?

Once I met a Japanese couple in New Delhi near India Gate. As I could see during the evening, they looked very much happy and contented than any other traveler who acted according to the whims and whishes of their travel agent and looked skeptic and careful. I could not resist to broke a conversation with this couple and asked what best they could see in India.

They replied, “India might be poor and underdeveloped but its people are rich. They are rich by heart. They might be hungry and unhappy, yet you give a smile to them, they will reply you with a bigger smile. That’s something amazing and makes your day.”

Technical Writing and the Domain Knowledge

Technical writers are often been questioned during the interview if they have worked earlier in the same domain or not. Even I have faced the same tune during my interviews on the previous occasions but mostly by those employers who have never shown any interest in my writing ability or my understanding ability of the subjects. For a writer, is it going to make any difference? If at all, it is going to make difference, the question is how much. Is there any one to quantify it? Interviewers possibly know this question much before they come across the candidate. The kind of work they have done previously or the companies they have worked for is enough to know about the domain a candidate has worked so far. Yet, this question is eventually asked.

I have not yet understood the real purpose of this question, may be the interviewers who are very much experience in the technical writing field can throw some light on this. Whereas I understand that technical writers are meant to work in a different setup at different times and they are basically writers who are by default supposed to clear up the mess in the writing and make it simpler and understandable to the readers. What happens if they have Domain Knowledge? Will their work be faster and smoother? I agree to some extent that writers will enjoy the comfort of knowing the subject well, and it will not be demanding either to spend much time in understanding it. But even if you are in the same domain, next time the topic changes, issue changes and the requirement changes. To cope up with all these one will have to spend required amount of time. Above all, can the writer be as knowledgeable as the Subject matter experts. The straight answer can be “no”. Technical writers can learn only some basics of the domain. That can be gathered during due course of time while working on the project.

So, why is this fuss? Is this a limiting factor for any of the technical writers to land up in any technical writing job before having domain knowledge? My answer is, it should not be. If it is so, then I believe subject matter experts will have to be the technical writers. Yes, but technical writers will have to be a fast learner and should have interest in learning things to present it to the audience what they are aiming for. In this perspective, it is right to have knowledge of your domain, which can always help you in understanding. But this is not the core requirement of a technical writer. The more years of work you put in some domain, the more you learn about it. But it should not become a constraint while you make a shift from one domain to another domain.

At the end of the day it is the choice of the technical writers themselves to analyze liking for a domain and if possible stick to that because that will eventually provide them some other opportunity in terms of career growth. Say for example, I have written for Telecommunication domain, Agriculture and now writing for Life Science products. My background is in life science and it gives me upper edge in understanding the business logic of the product but the work what we perform, does not require that much of specialized knowledge. For me this domain could be a liking domain and I may prefer to be in this domain and write about it. Similarly an engineer graduate who is into technical writing might choose to write more about hard core technology, a finance graduate might think of writing in financial product and management graduate can write about ERP and other related domain. It is all about likes and dislikes, which drives you to choose the domain.

This is one of the issues going round in the industry for quite some time and there should be clarity on this. Well, the necessity will definitely bring people to understand it by themselves. I remember there was a time when only engineers were in demand to be in the technical writing. But now the clout is out, writers can be found in any individual and of any background. Therefore, now the technical writers are from different backgrounds. Similarly the dearth of good technical writers will definitely wipe away the hypocrisy of domain knowledge, which some times block your entry into many of the good corporation. Early understanding would be the welcome step towards solving this issue.

Pitfalls of Technical Writing

The documentation need does not always grant good status and valuable position for technical writers in any of the product development company. Most often when you interact with the technical writers, they do not seem to be very much willing to let you know where are they heading towards in their career or they are happy about their role in the organization. The truth is that they themselves do not know what is their fate except the fact that they have a job, which is paying them well presently.

Ask most technical writers about their workplaces and you will likely to hear the same complaints. The developers do not follow any specs and never tell what they are up to. They slip their schedules by months, but the minute they are done, you are supposed to have the docs ready, like by magic. The developers and development team is the hub of activity and the core team in any product company. Obviously, this is. However, it is not only the team in the organization. If so, does organization not need other teams like testing, documentation and SQA team to work simultaneously. So, why is there a bias?

Worst over, most of the developers are bad in their verbal and non-verbal communication. If you learn their English, you forget yours and that is the end of your year’s toil of learning little bit of English. Yet, they will only meet the customer with their lanky, unshaven English language. The scenario is, you keep on changing the job and everywhere you go, you will witness the same thing happening. Moreover, many a times you report to your boss who does not have slightest idea about what you do and what it takes to do such job.

I remember, in my last company, a Software Requirement Specification document was returned to our development team with the comment that it contained 90% language error and it can not be accepted in its present form. We had to do the cleaning and correcting of the entire document to make it presentable. Yet, Technical writers are often struggle to prove their Return On Investment in absence of any established metrics for measuring it. Irony is that technical writers can make difference in any kinds of the document organization produce, be it client serving documents or archival documents, yet their importance is highly misunderstood.

The fact remains unimportant to many of the organization’s biggies that high quality documentation can make a big impact on customer satisfaction. It increases usage, gives more successful implementations, and creates better references and happier customers, which then drive more sales. It is an image-uplifting act which most of the organizations fail to realize. Good documentation can sell even product. You can have competitive advantage over your competitors of having high quality documentation.

Today, the ratio for developers and technical writers are somewhere 20 or 30:1. This is for the obvious reason if the bosses are Technical person they value that art more than anything. That also reflects the poor image one organization has toward it's documentation. Organizational chart does not show a progressive look to the technical writers. Many organizations have typically failed to sustain because of the dearth of enough documented archival knowledge, which helps most of the new employees to understand the background of the product.

Although technical writer’s whole job is about communication, they are sometimes the last to hear about future development plans or last-minute changes to a release. Truth is, Tech writers are good advocates for the user, always thinking about the user's point of view and they can make valuable addition in the development of the product.

Technical writers do tend to be the user's advocate, arguing for clarity and logic in everything from error messages to how features are implemented. But that's hard to do when you never talk to any customers. Even the customer’s feedbacks are shelved with customer support department, leaving technical writers imaginative on their own.

Technical writing is no black magic and if many feel, any one can become, they are wrong. English is no short cut, which can be learnt in a year or two like Java or C++. This field is in nascent stage and growing horizontally in sheer numbers. Today, technical writers are joining the band wagon, but it is not too far that these writers would be evaluating and weighing their career goal in terms of their achievement on vertical ladder. Future will hold the platform where technical writers will make it big or break.

Global Language: Can’t get without English

Today’s Era of modernization has always lured us to study in English medium schools and colleges in order to be ahead in the career and job hunting. Its really pathetic and heartening that in spite of knowing that English is the language, which holds the key for the individual’s success in today’s world, our politicians have not promoted it in the school and colleges. Rather after independence the political will to promote Indian language, that is precisely regional in nature, and Hindi, which is the national language of the country, have taken the importance to be taught in the school and colleges and made compulsory as a vernacular.

It is but natural to have love for the national language and regional language. However, it should not be at the cost of ignoring to teach the language which can help you earn your livelihood. The motive to introduce regional and national language in government school and colleges gave a political opportunity for the politicians of the country to achieve their goal based on the language divide. English was out of the school in the primary school and introduced only from class six. Almost all the state government followed the same principle and English medium education remained isolated in few of the public, central, private and convent schools and the colleges.

Although, even in isolation, the worst English medium schools and colleges were considered better in education standard than so called good government schools and colleges. Most of the government schools and colleges deteriorated over the years because of lack of willingness of the teachers to provide good education. Yet, most of the IITians, IIM’s aluminous had government school education. However, they are again handful in sheer number who can hold few of the top positions in government and in the private jobs.

Whereas on an average, who can steer the main work of the corporate sectors and government sector, the convent and public school educated youths were always in demand because of the English language skills. Though we say that Hindi is our national language, English remained our official language because of the regional divide and lack of common will to make Hindi the national language in true sense and spirit. It lacked the political will to do so and because of that English survive the onslaught. Good that English survived the step motherly treatment.

Many of the so-called nationalist and pseudo nationalist might term me the anti nationalist in terms of the praise and importance I am showering for a foreign language. That too, this is called our oppressor’s language. And love for this language is clearly a sin in terms of the love for the nation. But if it is so, all the politician’s sons and daughters are the bigger sinner than me. They all have got educated in English medium.

Once while doing my post graduation, one of my teacher very clearly and forcibly had stressed upon that if you want to get something good out of your life, learn to speak and write good English. It was an advice, but off course it was a requirement for me. I studied from government school that too half of my schooling was done in the hinterland background and coping up to know English well was a major challenge for me. Well, over the years, I have grown and learnt English as days passes. Every day is a day of learning for me. And today because of English I am able to feed my family and myself. Kudos to English, which is sustaining my life.

The globalization has thrown open the door of opportunity and it is this language, which can help any one who wants to be successful. The global language, which can get you to the top, is none other than English. In past one decade the jobs, which are outsourced to India and to the Indians, are because of its English knowing talent pool. In future also more jobs will be offered to Indians because of their English communication skills. This is the fact and it is going to stay. Whether government believes it or not, without English our future is going to be ruined. It is no more the language of class. It is the language of mass. The better we know, the better we are equipped for the job.

Sensing the scenario, now even the common man thinks of sending their children to English medium schools. More CBSE, ICSE English medium private schools are coming up and these are no doubt attracting the crowd. The government schools are facing stiff competition. Especially in Kerala and Karnataka the government schools are the last resort. Other states also following them though bit slowly. People have lost faith in corrupt politicians who have kept the people aloof from the opportunity and now in this age of globalization they do not want their children to miss the opportunity what they might have missed because of not knowing English.

I wish good luck to the people for their wisdom of understanding the change and taking appropriate steps for the future of their children.

Problem and prospect of being in Technical Writing

I must tell the truth that I didn’t jump into technical writing because I love it. It will not be appropriate even to say that I knew the truth about technical writing before joining the job. In fact, before landing in technical writing career, I had gone through some of the articles published on the net which gives little insight about the job. The transition from my writing career to technical writing was consciously based on the pay cheque it offered. The organization, which hired me first for the job saw the potential of I becoming a successful technical writer. Whereas, I was not very sure of myself, whether I could make good use of my writing skills for the hired role.

Lot of questions kept haunting my mind till I joined the job. Well, first month passed smoothly attending different trainings and analyzing role and work. Job was much easier for me than I had expected to be. And it was not the place where I had to demonstrate the art of writing for attracting my readers and add value to increase volume of sales for the periodicals, as I worked for in the past years. The work is to write simple, grammatical error free English, following the style guidelines for the content structure and formatting. Obviously, it is more of a mechanical job than writing per-se.

Now that I am a technical writer I often wonder what could be the road map of technical writing in the future and to gather some of the free information available on the net I came across an article written by Joann T Hackos, Fellow, Rocky Mountain Chapter, STC, titled, “Trends for 2000: Moving Beyond the Cottage”, which meticulously looks into the problem and prospects of industry in which the technical writers are employed. The writer precisely quotes the transition of technical writing from a cottage industry to a global business. I find it worth to summarize the concept and central idea of the article for the benefit of my fellow technical writers.

Cottage industry employees craftsmen and artisans who work in the small groups or independently and the arts and craftsmanship is an individual skills rather than a trait, which can be taught and people can be trained hands-on. Similar situation presently works even for the technical writing, where the technical writers work in small groups or independently on some products. Undoubtedly, the reflection of the their writing is the reflection of individual craftsmanship in their documents. Further to analyze the individual craftsmanship in writing, the article digs into some of the glaring problem the technical writers face.

Pressure to keep staffing low results in too few technical communicators to allow everyone to craft individual books and help files. Because of limitations on hiring and restrictions on number of personnel, organizations have entrusted some of their needs for additional people during peak periods by hiring contractors. The use of technical writer contractors will continue. However, at present, the industry is experiencing an increase in the number of permanent positions that companies hope to fill because of high and continued long-term demand for technical communication. In the current high-growth economy, the trend toward more in-house positions should continue, but the need for short-term contractors will also remain high.

Many technical communicators complain about the number of tools they have to learn. Unfortunately, there is no rest. The delivery technologies that are available to us continue to change and continue to display a frustrating lack of standards. Everything works differently everywhere. As a result, there is an increase in the number of organizations using production specialists to handle the technologies of final delivery to customers. Not only has the diversity of delivery methods contributed to increasing specialization, but also ignoring the importance of good content development. In an ideal situation, more than 75 percent of an individual communicator’s time is taken up by page design and final page production. Less than 25 percent of the time is devoted to user analysis and content development.

The need to interact with the engineering or programming teams often precludes working at home for long periods. In fact, there will be a decrease in opportunities for large-scale telecommuting because of the increasing use of information databases and the need for information reuse. Technical communicators who need to work closely with marketing, support, development, and consulting team members to better understand customers cannot be “home alone.”

Product-development schedules that are getting shorter and shorter in response to competitive pressures mean that our organizations need to find ways to eliminate process steps or decrease the amount of time we take to perform them. The simplest way to do so is through technology. Many departments have learned that, if we can automate production steps through technology, we can shorten cycle time without risking quality.

The need to help customers adopt our products to their industries means technical communicators must take responsibility for gaining domain and customer knowledge in addition to understanding the technology. At present, many technical communicators work closely with developers to understand the product and capture product specifications. In increasingly conservative markets, we have new roles to play, showing customers how products will affect their work. In other words, users don’t necessarily want to know what the product can do; they want to know how to do what they want to do.

Except for a few holdouts and a few organizations that are sensitive to customers’ needs for paper, we have experienced a complete transition to electronic delivery. Most of that delivery, however, has taken the form of book files saved as PDFs onto CD-ROMs or Websites. Cost savings rather than utility are still driving electronic delivery. This can be counter-productive, especially in global markets where Web access is not ubiquitous.

The dramatic increase in interest in single sourcing and documentation databases represents recognition that the cost savings from electronic delivery of information have already been achieved. Organizations are looking for additional means to reduce costs: information reuse, dynamic updating, decreased production times, decreased development times as a result of standardization, and so on. That means a reorganization of the technical writer’s environment. No longer technical writers work independently, responsible for crafting whole books. We need to work as teams, with some members responsible for technical content, some for customer requirements, and others for design and innovation.

The demand for skilled designers, knowledgeable about user needs and design issues; to participate on product design teams is already very high in innovative companies. This evolving role requires people who have learned a lot about design, work well in a cross-functional environment and are willing and eager to keep learning. People who do well in this heady atmosphere tend not to be typical technical writers.

Taking Business Perspective, it should be obvious that we take a strong business perspective on our future in technical communication. If we most value individual craftsmanship, there will be places where our skills will continue to be welcome. But we may well be missing out on the major paradigm shift and the greatest challenges we face. The choice is naturally ours

Why should you write clearly?

Writing clearly is the hallmark of communicating effectively. Most often we write and believe that what we have written is clear to others. However, many a times it is not. Our writing in general than its clarity overwhelms us. But if we still believe that what we write is readable and understandable to the larger audience then its time we look at other's writing and analyze where we are placed in terms of clarity in our own writings. In fact, when we look around the people who make the difference, are the one who communicate their ideas clearly and forcefully, both orally and in writing.

Success eludes those who can't express their ideas, or who do so in bureaucratic fashion. Today, its not just enough to be a good scientist, engineer, businessman, or whatever you do. You have to be able to make other people understand what you're doing and why it is important. No matter how competent you may seem in private, your hard work will usually go unrecognized, because others will step in and communicate it more skillfully.

Be with the information explosion

Undoubtedly, today the fastest growing segment of any nation’s economy is information industry, which is by and large, production and dissemination of information. It is rapidly surpassing the mark of production of goods and services. The obvious reason is that the sizes of corporations and government agencies have grown so large that transmitting information through personal contact is merely impossible. In today’s world, clear, concise and to the point writing has greater relevance than ever before. One could get away with disorganized report, ambiguous memos a couple of decades back when people had more time and things moved slowly. But today we are competing with thousand of other people at a time who are sending multiple electronic documents through e-mails. People will not be interested in your writing if it does not convey the central idea in more than a minute.

The important skill

Nine out of ten times when the corporate executives are asked how the business and engineering schools could better equip the students to face the challenges of the real business world. The responses have been unanimously emphasizing to train the students to write better and clear English. However, it is really unfortunate that the education systems do not teach you the skills, which you require to use everyday i.e. to write.

Communication skills are highly rewarded in business, industry, and the scientific community today. If you are able to get messages down on paper clearly and condense masses of data to one sheet of clear analysis, your future in your organization is really bright. Truth is also that a huge amount of money gets wasted every year on research and technical achievements because the reports and memo fails to inform the result concisely. You might wonder that if the system is running on the wrong machine how can you make the difference in totality. But, the message is, you can do something of your part. That will get you noticed and others will follow the example you set in.

Get recognized

The person who can clear the mess of written words will immediately attract attention. People who have never heard of you will recognize you by the word you spread around. You may be helpful to the people for making the language legible of the reports and memos, which are going to impact larger audience.

The danger of sloppy writing is that it can create unimaginable damage and destroy the image of you being a good writer. Even if you write a good piece of concept, idea or script and if it fails to covey its clear meaning, you earn a bad reputation. Next time your readers may find you a burden to read your write-up without really going through it. Your name might sound boring for your reader. Similarly, in the organization, where you work, you get branded as good writer or get compromised as a writer in die-hard requirement.

Always remember your writing can reach far more people than you can personally contact them. To them, you are precisely judged by your writing and that shows how effectively you communicate to them. In case your point of contact with your professional world is through your writing, then its even more tough challenge for you to create your image through your writing. To your audience, in true sense, your writing is you.

Your communication is important

Once Sir William Oslar wrote- "In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs."

True, as it is said, scientific investigation or engineering project is never completed until you communicate your results. No matter how significant your findings are, they remain useless unless you communicate them in a way that others can understand. You might have worked long hours and hard way to develop some new ideas or products. When you finally succeeded, you decided that this might be something a lot of other people might find useful.

You excitedly write it up and share this announcing your new result. But you never got a response from them, neither critical statement nor the appreciation. You wonder why such things happen. The practical scenario is you put yourself in the receiver’s shoes and analyze your writings. As you analyze, you understand that where you had gone wrong.

Clear writing is clear thinking

Many a times while you sat down to produce a piece of writing you realized that you don’t understand the subject as you thought. You find yourself as if you have nothing to say in your writing and moreover, whatever you are writing is the information to cover up your ignorance. In reality, writing has a way to visualize your knowledge and uncover the gaps in your understanding. But if you consider that you have not produce a good piece of writing, you are probably missing the clear thought to write about.

Everyone has experienced the clarifying effects of getting something down on paper. The reason is simple. When you view something through several senses, you gain new perspectives from each one. Writing uses vision, touch and, if you read it to yourself, sound. Each sense enriches the experiences surrounding a concept that may have formerly been only vaguely specified somewhere inside your head.

If you're finding that your thinking about some idea is fuzzy and ill defined, try jotting your ideas down, in whatever form and order comes to mind. Look them over. Read them out loud. Write them out in different ways. Talk them over with friends and coworkers. You will soon find that you are thinking more clearly about them, too.

If you have been missing this aspect in your writing, you may re-look and take time to refine this art to suit your writing and redefine your prospect of being a good communicator. A good communicator will always be sought after in terms of demand in industry, education and any specific field of knowledge. Free advice is to hone this skill as soon as possible.