STC INDIA DIARY

Jan-Feb 2006

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STC India Chapter New Admin Council Members

The election process for the new admin Council, STC India chapter, 2006, started a couple of months ago. For the first time in the history of the STC India chapter, the admin council decided to go for a remote voting method. The rationale behind this significant change was to enable most, if not all the members of the India chapter to participate in the election process.

Some members sent their votes by email, and some others marked their choices on pieces of paper and handed them over to Susan Alexander, the immediate past president and election officer. After careful examination of the voting slips and email votes, Susan announced the results of the election for different positions on the STC India admin council for the year 2006.

Here are the results:

Gururaj B.S. – President

Anupama Gummaraju – Vice President

Anjana Sriram – Secretary

Michelle Cherian – Treasurer

Mak Pandit will continue to be on the admin council as its immediate past president.

Minutes of the STC India Chapter Annual Business Meeting

STC India chapter Annual Business Meeting (ABM) was held on December 16 2005 at the Taj Krishna, Hyderabad.

The ABM, held at the 7th annual conference in Hyderabad, attracted over 35 members and volunteers of the chapter. Mak Pandit, the president of STC India in 2005, welcomed the attendees. He shared the dais with the other admin council members. Jonathan Baker, one of the former directors of STC, also attended the meeting. Mak requested Susan Alexander, the immediate past president and election officer, to complete the election process.

The outgoing president handed over the baton to Gururaj, the newly elected president of STC India. Mak spoke about the progress of the chapter in the year 2005. Two regional conferences and an employment fair were organized in Bangalore. He lauded the efforts of all volunteers in making 2005 a successful year. Although the overall performance of the chapter was satisfactory, "We could have done much better on memberships and education. It is important that we set higher expectations for ourselves next year. The chapter seeks active participation and encouragement from its members to excel in its endeavors” he said..

Michelle Cherian, the treasurer of the chapter, shared some interesting information on the financial health of the chapter. She circulated a photocopy of the chapter's balance sheet and spoke in detail about the revenue and expenditure incurred by the chapter from December 2004 through December 2005.

The new admin council then initiated a discussion on the various topics proposed by the members of the chapter. Here is the list of topics discussed at the meeting (in no particular order):

Remote voting method adopted by the admin council this year. Members present at the meeting unanimously endorsed the new idea implemented by the admin council. When the admin council members sought suggestions from members toward the improvement of the election process, members made some excellent points such as using an email method, incorporating an authentication mechanism, and reusing the society's Web-based voting implementation.
Appointment of management committee members and city representatives to provide more members with leadership opportunities. The admin council and members present at the meeting decided to appoint management committee members and city representatives at a later point of time. Gururaj, the new president, said he would send out a message on the STC India mailing list and seek nominations from members interested in playing an active role in the activities and initiatives of the chapter.
Annual conference in 2006: The admin council and members present at the meeting opted for Bangalore as the venue of the next annual conference. The admin council will form a conference program committee after inviting nominations from members on the STC India mailing lists.

Gururaj thanked the members for attending the meeting and sharing their thoughts on issues concerning the chapter activities and administration.

STC India Chapter Volunteer Awards

STC members and volunteers who made outstanding contributions to the STC India Chapter at the STC India chapter Annual Conference were honored. The Chief Guest, Srini Koppolu, General Manager, Microsoft India Development Center, Hyderabad and Andrea Ames, Immediate Past President, STC gave away the awards. The recipients and their awards are described in the following table:

Award Description

Recipients for 2005

Distinguished Chapter Service Award

Ø Highest level award given by STC India Chapter.

Ø Awarded to volunteers who have helped STC and its community for a number of initiatives and over a number of years.

Ø STC India Chapter recommends these names to STC world-wide so that the contributions made by these people can be acknowledged by technical writing professionals all over the world.

Tharun Kumar Unni P. T.

For outstanding leadership of the India Chapter-for inspiration, enthusiasm, creativity, and dedication.

Frederick Menezes

For outstanding leadership of the India Chapter-for inspiration,
enthusiasm, creativity, and dedication.

Pawan Nayar

For unfailing willingness to initiate and wholeheartedly support innovative and successful India Chapter activities.

Vijayalakshmi Dandu

For unfailing willingness to initiate and wholeheartedly support innovative and successful India Chapter activities.

Volunteer of the Year Award for 2005

Awarded to STC India Chapter volunteers who have made an outstanding contribution to the Chapter's activities.

Michelle Cherian

For her contribution to the Chapter's Activities as Treasurer.

Gururaj B. S.

For his contribution as the Program Manager of Bangalore Regional Conferences and Employment Fair.

Subash Babu

For his contribution to INDUS, the Chapter's newsletter, as editor.

Vijayalakshmi Dandu

For her contribution to INDUS, the Chapter's newsletter, as editor.

Manoj Bokil

For his contribution to the Chapter's activities as the City Representative for Pune.

Vidyut Sonde

For his contribution to the Chapter's activities as the City
Representative for Mumbai.

Paresh Naik

For his contribution to the Chapter's 2005 Salary Survey.

Uday Chava

For his contribution to the Chapter's 2005 Annual Conference.

Mira Balani

For her contribution for maintaining the Chapter's Web Site.

Most Promising Volunteer for 2005

Awarded to STC India Chapter volunteers who have made an outstanding contribution and who are contributing to the Chapter's activities for the first time.

Bobby George Abraham

For his efforts in setting up a community of Technical Communicators in the City of Trivandrum

Rakhi Bhattacharya

For her efforts in setting up a community of Technical Communicators in the City of Kolkata.

Ritu Kumble

For her active contribution to STC's efforts of arranging important events.

Learning Sessions

STC India Chapter held the following Learning Sessions to the technical communicators in past few months.

Session Topic	Zen and The Art of Technical Writing
Session Speaker	K. Narssimhan
Topic Summary	The presentation introduced the audience to Zen Buddhism, Koans, and the paradoxes of life, and mapped them to the day-to-day life of a technical writer. Zen Buddhism does not attempt to teach but to create awareness. It is a method of awakening. The presentation attempted to take the essence of Zen and introduced the writer to the advantages of being 'aware' during every moment of his/her life. The presentation took Zen principles such as right posture, being present here now, letting go of distractions, releasing the ego, discovering your Buddha nature, combining the body, mind, and your actions, the importance of practice, having a child’s mind and combined them effectively with the profession of Technical Writing. The speaker said, “In a way, Zen and Technical Writing represent one of life’s paradoxes. Zen is a wordless ‘experience’ whereas Technical Writing is an experience of ‘words’. The challenge is to live the paradox and discover the truth in it.”
Date of the Session	January 28, 2006
Sponsor/Venue	VERITAS India (a Symantec company)
Organized by	Manoj Bokil, STC India Chapter Pune Representative

Session Topic	Communication Skills (Verbal & Non-verbal)
Session Speaker	Deepak Heble
Topic Summary	This session discussed the basics of verbal and non-verbal communication. Communication skills were explained with examples.
Date of the Session	December 24, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	BindView Corporation
Organized by	Manoj Bokil, STC India Chapter Pune Representative

Session Topic	Why Technical Communication is NOT Instruction Design (and what does it mean to us!)
Session Speaker(s)	Pawan Nayar
Topic Summary	The talk drew out the differences between technical writing and instructional design and presented areas where instructional design can influence technical communication but can't stop its voyage or penetration. Effectively, the talk was about the broader realms of communication and how we extend the frontier.
Session Topic	Using Captivate as a multimedia Demo Creation Tool in Windows and UNIX environments
Session Speaker(s)	Ashima Gupta
Topic Summary	This topic included demonstration of Captivate as a multimedia creation tool. The goal was to let the audience get started with Captivate. The topic also covered how to use power of connectivity in hybrid environments. As an example, Captivate running in Windows platform was used to create multimedia demonstrations for Unix software.
Date of the Session	December 10, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	Computer Sciences Corporation
Organized by	Saravanan Manoharan, STC India chapter NCR Representative

Session Topic	Offshore Writing Teams: Expectations
Session Speaker	Greg Thomas
Topic Summary	Following were covered in the session: Overview/audience expectations Expectations from the writing team Writing team's expectations Schedules/commitments Communication Standards International considerations Success behaviors Grab bag (or, idiomatic English)
Session Topic	A Technical Writer's Beanstalk
Session Speaker	Vasudha Rangarajan
Topic Summary	This session discussed the following career options: Technical Writing – skillsets and career path as an individual contributor Instruction Designing - skillsets and career path Content Writing - Web, white papers, research papers, analyst reports, and patent writing Freelancing - business prospects Corporate Communication - brochures, proposals, and internal and external communication Management Path
Date of the Session	December 2, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	EMC Data Storage Systems India Pvt. Ltd.
Organized by	Akash Dubey, STC India Chapter Bangalore Representative

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