The Recession hit me!

Recession! This is the most frightening word for the working class. In the fast pace of economy when the global race is towards building robust nation, jobs for millions of educated, semi-skilled, and skilled persons, and supporting livelihood for the dependent families, takes a halt, all of a sudden. Everything, which was looking rosy, becomes gloomy. A depressed, anxiety filled environment with no certainty of future ambition and career, looms large. The downturn of economy keeps us silent, guessing and waiting for it to revive again. For commoners, it is very difficult to understand as to why does recession hit. However, even if we understand we can not avoid once it hits.

I have been the witness of three recessions in my small working career of 14 years. My own industry’s failure in nineties to sustain further left me to fend for my own to look for the alternative option of livelihood. At the same period, the dotcom bubble burst, threw away thousands of software techies on the roads to look for a fresh start. My own industry’s recession was far less in magnitude than the dotcom failures. We were in thousands whereas the software techies were quite greater in numbers. The techies who had gone to USA on H1B visa in the prospect of earning and making their career successful were denied jobs and came back home with the lost face.

The roads were wide open but neither those techies nor I knew where to go or where those roads end. Most of the occasions, I found myself trying my luck for the same place where even techies were ready to give a try. Knowing clearly well that none of us can be lucky every time and the job we can get is of our choices. We were compromising with our aspirations, aims, and career. It needed lots of self assurance to bounce back again and keep trying. Not many could take up the challenge of the grind. Some of my own colleagues surrender to the fate and kept hoping that something happening for them rather than taking things in their hand and trying. Some of the techies whom I knew went into depression and mental instability. It was really a tough time. But tough time passes off and tough people survive. Yes! All those who fought their battle with tough time, survived and I too survived with a paltry job to make my living in the hope of rising again.

Toiling hard with aim of building my career again I joined the race of techies too in the years to come and became part of the software industry as a writer. Yet, another worst hit recession came as a part and parcel of down turn of the economy in 2008. The hype, the false hope and the greed of achieving higher and faster have failed the principle of economics. The miseries are unimaginable. The present recession of 2008 is continuing. We did not learn the lesson from our past mistakes.

It is going to be the end of 2009 and speculations are high that the industry is reviving and jobs are going to be back again. Yet, clear and visible signs are not to be seen as to how the industry is going to do in the coming year. Amidst the recession monster biting bitterly, the tryst of the employees to save their jobs have been the one and only aim than to be aggressive on their job and perform brilliantly. Tough time has shown that how individual employee behaves in the difficult times. To safeguard their own interest people have gone to the level of betrayal, back biting, snatching working credits and bad mouth. This has been the common phenomena of the working place. Be it the company, which boasts of their great working culture and open door policy or the smaller companies, employees have shown their character alike.

Common professional goal were not the goals of the employee, which could sustain the company and do well even during the recession. The obvious results were that the hard workers got axed and so called smart workers retained due to the cost saving. It hit me and all of those who believes in doing their best by virtue of hard work. This recession have taught many of us that being smart worker is better than hard worker. But, we have also been taught that there is no alternative of hard work. The question is whether to be smart worker, steal some body’s work and take the credit or be the hard worker, take the challenge and perform to the best of our skills. Of course my conscience and morale will not let me fall into the first category of smart worker, but definitely I would strive hard to protect my interest and try to get my due credit at the work place. This recession is not going to change my character and for that sake any recession is not going to change my character. It is because of our character and morale we could face any of the recessions and come out successful.

Why Technical Writing

The mesmerizing beauty of words looks beyond the fascinating world, fathoms into the deep oceans and searches the hidden treasure at the bottom of the sea. It goes deeper into soul searching, unveils the untold story, captivates the whirlwind of the emotional mind; find many such things which are ruthless and disturbing yet find meaning when it is narrated. However, there are writings which do not relate to any of such things and technical writing could be one of them.

Technical writing as my present profession, I do not have vast experience writing user manual, online help, tutorials, release notes, admin guides, install guides and quick start guides, just to name a few. I came into technical writing by accident or call it by chance. Again from non-writing career to writing career was also merely luck. As a freelancer I had chances of getting published quite a number of times before I got a break into writing career. But these publications never gave me slightest of idea that I too can make writing a career. When hit by the recession in my non-writing career, I thought of doing many things to make my living but writing was no where closer to my thought even in dreams. This could be because I never thought that I can make it as a career primarily due to the fact that I was not able to assess my ability to write for a living. Though I love writing, I never believed that I could write well. So, one fine morning when I realized that I had little money to last beyond few days to feed me, I thought of giving it a shot and then figured out a small advertisement in the newspaper seeking freelance writer.

I went straight away to meet the editor and after a small introduction he agreed to give me a try. He gave me a topic and asked me to deliver the write-up within a couple of days. The first draft of the write-up was impressive and he asked me to work on it in detail and with final typeset and proofreading he made it the cover feature of the magazine. That made up my confidence and I realized that I can do it. Then on writing has been able to sustain me, feed me, and give me a place among the professionals. Well the freelancer tags remained just for a few months initially and I got a break into a monthly magazine which gave me a platform to regularly contribute to the magazine, liaison with resource people, do public relation job, organize press meet and be the part of the other press meet too. Pressman’s job had always fancied me from the beginning but I never knew the rigours of their hard work and pittance pay cheque. All I had seen was the glamorous few big names in the industry who are idolized enjoying the life of journalism profession. But at the same time the larger mass kept on toiling just to get even recognized and forget about getting their due.

The big names were not only wonderful writers but powerful speaker, manipulators, shrewd detectives, and good in powerful public relations. Yes! The journalism career is mixed of all this. Even one element is missing in you; it can get others taking over you. You can remain a good writer but can never be a good journalist. In case if you are coming from an orthodox background and can not mixed with the polluted surroundings and the corrupt people, better re-look into yourself what you want from journalism. It is not everyone’s bait. Well, with brief stint of so called journalism career, I had disagreement umpteen times with my peers and the editors, managed and survived, cajoled and cowed down. In between all this, as the mind found solace of being in the writing world, hunger haunted continuously. I could hardly sustain the taunt of happy mind and empty stomach.

Then I realized, hunger can not breed the beauty of words. Search and the alternatives are two things which can give insight to look beyond the horizon. First, I off loaded the journalism tag to become a medical writer, then an academic writer for shorter period of one year each. But both these in the silicon city of India without realizing that even the silicon industry would be hiring writers to work for their task force. And these writers would be called technical writers.

Kudos to naukri dot com, which made inroads as online job portal and gave an opportunity for the job seekers to post their profile free of cost. Similarly it gave the opportunity for the employers to look for the potential employee from the data base. I too posted my profile and to my luck, looking at my previous writing experience, one prospective software employer wanted to test my ability to see whether I can fit into their basket.

There was a written test, a technical test and the face to face interview, to see whether I can learn things faster and implement that into the work. And that’s how I wore the tag of a technical writer. The very question, do you like technical writing, sometimes puts me off. I do not like to answer this question being my true self. But often this question keeps on coming to successive interviews and I ought to answer this. However, how often you can lie. This question becomes the part of the recorded test which is done by pen and paper. Initially you makeover, wear a mask, try lying, misleading and boasting that you love technology and you want to write about it. But not longer you can lie to yourself. True, I like writing but may not be technical writing. Then why do I become a technical writer.

The answer is, it gives me money and status of being a successful writer, where I can boast that my writing sells. My writing has value for money. My writing is part of the requirement; it is not just the fanciful world of time pass. My writing helps people complete a task; my writing helps people understand a software or hardware product. It is truly meaningful and that’s what gives me satisfaction of being a technical writer. I might aspire to create different piece of writing of my choice but in my professional work sphere I am just a technical writer and I value writing the technical manuals. Some times when I ponder upon thinking what to say when people ask me about my profession. I can definitely say, I am a writer and a technical writer specialist.

1,160,000,000 hits for “why style guides?”

I casually gave a search in the smartest search engine ‘Google’ to take a dig about the need of style guides. It produced 1,160,000,000 results. The total number of search generated, definitely guarantees the importance of style guides but at the same time these numbers do not justified the relevance of the content what I was looking for. Nevertheless, even if I narrow down my search, I am sure I am going to get quite large number of sites which will have message for me about the style guides.

Why style guides? Do we really need it? The answer from most of the technical writers is going to be ‘yes’ in all cases. This is the approach of any technical writer to produce documentation conforming to the elements of writing to be consistent across all the documents of same nature. For publications or companies with a large number of contributing writers, a style guide is essential if the end product has to look alike.

Style guide becomes important for technical writing, commercial or business writing, journalism, web copy writing and many other forms of publications. In all these cases, to ensure the consistent writing style, guidelines are usually published. This allow writers to contribute avoiding their personal element of style but to adhere to the style of publication, company or website.

A style guide provides a means of documenting basic rules or features of the writing. For technical writers a style guide for a particular customer or project is to ensure that the data they deliver is in acceptable form and in consistent to the previous deliveries or other publications that the customer already has.

The style guides differs depending upon company, publication, customer because of the fact that there is no single authoritative source on styles for written English. The use of punctuation and correct grammar is well established and clear but style is much more than just the correct usage of punctuation, grammar and vocabulary.

Style can define many different aspects such as document structure, paragraph numbering and indentation, the use of headings, the use of lists, trademark or branding considerations, sentence lengths, layout, font sizes, depth of treatment of a subject, spelling (UK v US for example), readership considerations, use of abbreviations, terminology, the use of symbols, and voice preferences (active v passive).The list could go longer too. The fact is creative writers may not be worried about these listed items, whereas a technical writer will have to heed to all of these defined styles.

For a writer who is associated with a company or publication will follow the guided principles laid down by the employer but the real challenge is for Freelance writers. Freelance writers should continually evolve style guides for each customer or publication type.

Most of the creative writers love using their own styles. Nothing is wrong about that but if they only follow certain amount of styling consistently the job of proofreading and reviewing becomes easier. That is why sometimes the publisher prescribes certain guidelines to send your write-ups in the particular format and use defined styles. Failing which even if your write-up is brilliant, it will not see the light of the day.

Some of the writers would still disagree to follow the style guides. For them, ‘long live imagination, bury the style guides’ may be the catch line. You too can fall into this category if you are not tied up as a contract technical writer being on the payroll of a company. Technical writing is structured writing and it demands certain style guides to be followed.

Taming MS Word

You might be a MS Word user for quite some time, may be for a year, two years, five years or even more. In fact majority of the people who are into writing or even in non-writing profession opt MS Word as a word processing tool. Are there any good reasons for choosing this tool? I bet there could be many. First and foremost, MS Word being the first and only word processing tool to be in the market which had all the utility based features with appropriate GUI that is easy to work with. Another could be that this works well on Windows platform. Of course, other word processor too works well. However, there is no doubt that MS Word became an obvious choice for the people who opted for Windows OS.

MS Word evolved with the passage of time adding more features into subsequent releases. For the users, availability of the new features always added more spices to their delight. But more added features brought more complexity to the application and user complain began pouring in. The older versions of the word regarded to be more stable than the newer versions. Although, MS Word crashing is not an often reported phenomenon, still it poses different kinds of problem which can make you go mad. At times you will bewilder to think why your most lovable word processor behaves so stupid. Some times the problems are so horrible that you will really think twice whether to use word in professional environment or not.

One such problem or call it the biggest problem I have faced with word is increasing the file size from some 350 Kb to 13.5 Mb size in few minutes time. Any action you perform on this file takes you long time and increases the files size exorbitantly and finally at one point it hangs. Try opening it again, doesn’t work at all. This happens especially when you are working with the customize word templates and supposed to create fairly long documents using formatting and graphics. In my personal experience this bloating problem is inherent with Word 2003 and later editions.

So, one of the way to work with long documents is to get back to the earlier versions of the word which might not give you this problem. But you can never be sure, because the code structure for the different version of the application will not be much different. However, this can relieve you a bit.

The major issue is to trouble shoot this if you are in the middle of the work and quite good amount of time is spent on the document. With trial and error experiments, we came across some solution which could be useful. If you are faced with such situation, try doing the following:

1. Open the Word document in MS Word, if possible. If this is not responding, try opening it with Internet Explorer. I think it should open.

2. Save as HTML or RTF. Name the file with an HTML extension or RTF extension, e.g. communication.html.

3. Open communication.html file.

4. Save communication.html with a new Word .doc extension, e.g.communication1.doc.
This process of converting the Microsoft Word file into HTML and back into Word, removes all the unnecessary codes in the file, and will reduce the file size significantly.

Well, the file which was earlier of 10 Mb size reduces to less than 1 Mb size rather quite closer to the original size. On further query and discussion with pals and colleagues, surfaced the same difficulties but all had opinion to avoid this situation rather than trouble shoot.

Points of advice suggested were to follow certain golden principles while working with word template. Few of them are:

Do not cut and paste materials directly from one file into another as this will bring unwanted styles in the target Word file. Instead convert it to raw text and then import.

Avoid using the default settings in the Normal.dot template file.

Do not cut and paste graphics into Word. Instead, reference them with Insert | Picture.

Insert graphics at the end, when all content is ready.

Do not use default Word auto-format settings in the Table.

Use only styles to create bullets. Avoid using the toolbar and menu options to create bullets. Avoid over-rides. Supposedly bullet lists cause more damage than any other feature in Word.

The list might go on and on depending upon the user experiences. Probably the future releases of MS Word might address these problems, but we may experience certain other problems. This makes us weigh other available options. However, on the usability index, MS Word would exceed any other word processing tool in the market. Even otherwise, those available tools could be complete error free is not guaranteed. The question is, shall we say bye to word and adopt the new tool. Certainly we will differ in our approaches depending upon our need. Nevertheless, most of us would prefer to tame MS Word to cater our need than to switch over to some other tools. I am sure these pointers in mind will help reduce the file size and avoid corrupting the document template.

User Manual in support of Science Research

Writing user manual or help for analytical tools, in support of science research is always a challenge for writers, not only for its technical accuracy but also in terms of knowledge transfer. This involves good amount of knowledge percolation, and precision in language before it goes for the technical correction.

Some of the custom research analytical tools consist of numerous algorithms for computing the data to suit the requirement of the analysis. Evidently these tools are meant for highly knowledgeable audience who would like to use these tools in pursuit of achieving unknown facts. The analyzed data may be used to make hypothesis in the area of research or made it public for some other to validate, make relation and further predictions.

The basic aims of user guide or help is to lead user to familiarize different functionality and features of the tools to achieve desired result. However, when the analytical tool is a niche product, the job of a technical writer becomes tough. The confusion begins when technical writers do not know the knowledge level of the audience. Even when they know, it is sometimes misleading. For example, if you consider that all the analytical scientists and researchers have computation algorithm knowledge then it might not hold true to the whole class. Most of the time, it may incidentally become true that audience for whom you are writing user manual finds it useful and have no doubts performing the tasks they desired to do.

But most of the times it will not be so, some of them in spite of knowing and able to perform the tasks will come back to you to verify that how they are doing is the right way. Some of them will come back to you seeking knowledge looking beyond the beauty. Some will have comparative tastes to analyze the results derived differently with different tools. These audiences will seek detail knowledge of the logic and algorithm. Sometimes they will have a quest to know the comparative analysis of the similar tools available in the open market. The fact is, scientist and researchers like to verify and validate before they accepts anything. That’s how the science evolves.

These are too many things to do. The question is: can your user manual or help answer all these questions? Ideally it should not, but looking at another perspective it can carry as much knowledge as possible. But, how much, is yet again a question. Nevertheless, even if you have mega size manual, there will still be some message for you.

However, saying so, involves great amount of energy to compile the required content into the user manual. This is the primary job of a technical writer but it requires evidently all the stakeholder to contribute in to making of the manual. It is like sewing the cloths with fine needles.

Task looks Herculean, but it helps audience a lot in case of developing a tool in cutting edge technology. That is the primary goal of a user manual. Never to forget, one satisfied user can bring you ten more other users for your product.

Testing Time

Job Market is terribly down but most often, on an average, I receive around 5 mails seeking Technical writers in various Software organizations. Some of the organizations have sent mails umpteen times for the same position. I wonder these organizations are really hiring writers in this down time. But looking at the advertisements and consultant’s mail it looks that there is demand for Technical Writers in the market. At the same time I look at two of my friends who are searching for a position as a technical writer for past two months but so far they have no offers in hand. Weighing both the sides I am bit confused and not able to conclude as what is happening in the market and is there really a demand for the technical writers.

However, this reminds me of the situation when there is no hope organization conducts interview to keep job seekers hope alive. To a certain extent it seems alright but if there is absolutely no hiring then this fake exercise becomes counter productive. But who knows what Ramlinga Raju did in Satyam, some other CEO might be doing in other organizations. Interview the Job seekers and keep them in the fake payroll and siphon the money on the part of their salaries. Otherwise, two of my friends running pillar to post for past two months and attending more than ten interviews would have had at least one offer in hand. They both have more than 3 years of experience in Technical Writing. If I recall, till October 2008, if you get 3 calls you could be having 2 offers in hand. Message seems to be loud and clear, but to believe in this, is to leave the hope of future. It is not only my friends alone, it could be even me …….. I am scared, disappointed, and worried.

But looking at the questions what one of my friends in one of the interview was asked, it looks as if it is pass time for the recruitment department of the organization. To keep the recruiters busy, job seekers are grilled without any outcome. The real requirement is difficult to analyze. At this point of time when the interviewer’s future is itself in dark, they shoot question such as ‘What is the future of Technical Writing in India?’ Another one asked, ‘Are American writers better or Indian?”

My friend, who faced the interview, did not know how to answer these questions. Nevertheless, till now a facade is created in India especially in software industry that technical writing has very good career and suddenly technical writers are to face this reality. When you do not have job in hand, can you say that this industry promises lots of opportunity for you. Secondly, American and Indians alike are on the firing line and every one may be in the hit list to be fired. Finding out, who is better, that too from a perspective job seeker is utter foolishness. One of the friend rightly once said, ‘Recruiters are now looking for Pankaj Mishra, Arvind Adiga and Arundhati Roy to be technical writers. May be they might ask even Salman Rushdie to do this job.’

I can understand, it was seer frustration but the way he has been treated makes him say so. The postmortem of these interviews presses you hard to do the soul searching, whether you have a place here or not. Well, to say a little about the recruiters, they are nuts and they can pose any sort of questions to you without they themselves even knowing the answer. At a time they feel they are great and they can screw any person during the interview. But tide will turn, if you don not realize the value of good assets now, in the good time they will not recognize you. I mean your organization. These are passing phases and good turn in economy is expected. The crux is how well you can help job seeker contain their aspiration and motivate them to keep their hope alive. Of course technical writing will remain existent even though some of the technical writers find it tough or struggle to get a job. India is emerging as a promising destination for software industry and it will continue to evolve even in documentation. These are just testing time.

Recession and the pink slips

My last post was a personal view on the technical communication in India and how would it take a turn in the recent economic recession. I could not really make an inch forward from then to see a clear picture of my profession in which I am employed. The impact of economic downturn became more evident as the time passed by. And it literally made me think about myself, my job, and my career. A kind of uncertainty prevailed which made me docile and prevented me from being creative, analytic and bold enough to face the challenge and see a way through this.

The pink slip saga is a common practice in any economic crises. I have faced a career recession and so I can understand how it feels when you are threatened. When you are threatened you are challenged but you do not know how to win over the challenge. Many a times we feel certainly we lack certain skills because of that we are laid off and we need to sharpen our weak areas to improve upon. But most certainly it is not always true. There might be most deserving people with most appropriate skills losing job somewhere. The fact is their skills and talents are not in demand. The entire human resource requirement to pull up the cart is driven by the business demand. And when the speculation takes over the real scenario in business, uncertainty always looms large. We never know what is going to happen.

The worst part is that there is no mechanism by which we can predict and analyze much before it hits us. There is no way a common person can have some kind of access in the public data or right of information based on which they can prevent certain unwanted situation. However, this can not apply valid to the economic downturn where the entire business philosophy is runs on the wrong machine. When you start showing the profit and losses much beyond reality, sooner or later you land up in a mess.

It’s a big shame when a business leader of reputed excellence turns to be a cheater, a burglar, who steals the public money to fill his coffin. He puts our career, our future on stake for his own benefit. Its shame on the public machinery also which can not detect the fraud. Who knows how many of them might be involved in the episode. At the end numbers of jobless people are on the rolls. So far the number has crossed 4 lack mark and its continuing everyday. Policy is to cut jobs to survive. Blows are on; you never know who is receiving where. Major Job cuts make news that too of public limited companies, the LLC’s laid off never makes any news and that forms even bigger chunk in totality. These LLCs are contractors and subcontractors for Public limited companies. So the indirect impact can be even more severe.

The software and hardware computer industry boomed because of the prospect of serving all walks of business and the negative impact of any business would indirectly hit this industry too. It is related.

Few of my Technical writer friends have lost their job. We all are scared because we do not know our own status in terms of value and the demand at the work place. We are also just speculating about the things and living one day at a time. All said than done, tough people have tough work at hand to save the job if they have. If not, then to get another one. Each passing days is real testing time. We wish to be the survivors but would we. I don’t know. Let the time answer this question.