May 30, 2003, Bangalore

As part of the educational activities of the STC India Chapter, a workshop on Creating Online Help was held at Hotel Ashraya International, Bangalore. Tharun Unni, the current President of STC India chapter, was the faculty. Tharun has conducted several workshops and paper presentations in STC India and STC International conferences and learning sessions.

Tharun began by introducing the need for Online Help. He discussed the different delivery formats such as WinHelp, HTML-help, and browser-based help. Stating that “different situations warrant different types of help format”, Tharun explained the need to identify situations, users and writers’ needs, and then establish the best fit format. Tharun next explained how to use an authoring tool and how to integrate a Help file. He concluded the session by explaining platform-specific issues. The session was interactive and well received.

May 31, 2003, Pune

As part of the educational activities of the STC India Chapter, two learning sessions were conducted on May 31, at the VERITAS, Pune office. The sessions titled "Effective Communication Skills For Professional Communicators" and "Adobe Photoshop - The Basics" were conducted by Sushma Joshi and Yamini Nafde, respectively.

Mrs. Sushma Joshi who has over 14 years of journalism, advertising and technical communication experience began by establishing the importance of communication. She then explained the skillset required to become effective in the job and build long-lasting professional relations that stretch beyond work. The session included examples from real life where the use of effective communication or lack of it made all the difference in a successful or failed career.

Yamini Nafde then used her ten years plus technical communication experience to illustrate the importance of effective graphics in technical communication. She introduced participants to creating artwork in Adobe Photoshop. She explained how to improve the quality of screen shots using layers, cropping, filters, painting and retouch tool effectively.

June 28, 2003, Pune

A two-part information sharing session on improving writing for technical books was held at the VERITAS Software office in Pune. The session was divided in two parts. Sandhya Iyer, member of the editorial team with Times of India Pune, facilitated the first part titled "Art of Writing" while Atul Kahate, a Project Manager with i-flex solutions, took the stage in the second part to explain the nuances of "Authoring Technical Books".

Sandhya Iyer explained an enthralled audience that writing, be it a technical manual or a creative article in a newsmagazine, is nothing but a process. The process is time-consuming and requires preparation. When looked from distance, the writing process may turn vague but when divided into a series of steps, it turns more measurable, enjoyable, and simpler to implement. The session saw Sandhya answering numerous questions.

Atul Kahate build upon Sandhya’s premise and explained the more complex issues in authoring a technical book. He believes that the whole process of book creation, starting from audience analysis and content outline definition till editing and publishing, is exciting and fulfilling. Atul used real-life scenarios and case studies to explain the nature of challenges in book writing. He also shared his learning from the more difficult assignments he handled.

12 July, 2003, Bangalore

After a small gap Bangalore again was in STC India educational roadmap. On 12 July at the Hewlett-Packard office a learning session titled "Language Refresher and Technical Editing" was held at in Bangalore on Friday, 12th July, 2003. 

The first session on basic grammar of the English language was conducted by Gururaj B. S. Gururaj explained parts of speech, types of sentences, and their usage. He interspersed these concepts with examples, and actively sought audience participation. Gururaj's lively, interactive session jogged the knowledge of elementary, but seldom-remembered concepts of the English language, and also shed light on some little-known concepts, all in a fun-filled session. 

The second session was on technical editing, conducted by Rajan D. V. Rajan spoke about the different levels and types of editing, what to look for while editing, and checklists for editing. He also talked about the importance of technical communicators being good editors in the absence of well-defined editorial roles in most organizations.

Both speakers satisfactorily addressed queries of the audience. While the the former session focussed on going back-to-the-basics, the focus of the latter session was on achieving near-perfect levels of documentation. The workshop was appreciated by all the participants.

(Source: Aparna)

Note: The presentations conducted at different regions by the STC India chapter are now available on the web. You can download these presentations from www.stc-india.org/downloads.html.

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