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Nov-Dec  2004 
 

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STC India Diary

STC India Annual Business Meeting: Minutes

The following are the minutes of the Annual Business Meeting of the STC India Chapter held on Dec 3, 2004, at Hotel Taj Connamera, Chennai.

The meeting was chaired by our Immediate Past President, Tharun Kumar Unni.

The following were the highlights of the meeting:

1. 2004 Summary

Susan gave a brief round-up of the STC India Chapter activities during 2004.

Highlights of this year's achievements are:

  • Chapter of Excellence Award: STC India chapter won the Chapter of Excellence Award in 2004. The president acknowledged the contributions of all the present and past council members and other volunteers in making such a big achievement happen.

  • Membership Crossed 100: The number of members in our chapter stands at 103, thanks to outstanding efforts of Gururaj B.S., the membership manager in 2004.

  • More Learning Sessions: A large number of learning sessions were held in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune, thanks to the efforts of Anupama A., Kiruba Shankar, Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Kiruba Shankar, Sumathy Sreekumar, and all the presenters who came forward to assist STC's education initiatives.

  • Conference Program Committee: Ramesh Aiyyangar headed the Conference Program Committee and was ably assisted by the program committee members and other volunteers from Chennai and other cities in India. The ABM congratulated Ramesh and team for the meticulous execution of the conference proceedings.

  • Chapter Website Redesigned: The chapter website received a totally new look, thanks to Brijesh Bhaskaran and Lizy Jacob, our Webmasters. Brijesh and Lizy redesigned the website and launched the conference pages.

  • INDUS Continues to Excel: INDUS continues to grow in quality and provides excellent visibility for our chapter. INDUS won the Distinguishes, Most Improved Newsletter Award in the 2003-2004 STC Newsletter Competition. INDUS is currently backed by an active team of experienced authors, editors, and designers.

  • Competitions: Subash Babu conducted three major annual competitions - Technical Art, Online Communication, and Technical Publications, and several city-level competitions. A logo competition and a theme competition were also held as part of the annual conference.

2. Elections to the STC India Chapter Administrative and Management Councils

Tharun Kumar Unni, the election officer for the year 2004, declared the results of the elections held for the STC India chapter Administrative Council. The following members were unanimously elected to the STC India Chapter Administrative Council:

•  President: Makarand Pandit

•  Vice President: Ravishankar R.

•  Secretary: Gururaj B.S.

•  Treasurer: Michelle Cherian

•  Immediate Past President: Susan Alexander

The following members were nominated to the STC India Chapter Management Council:

•  Competitions Manager: Subash Babu

•  Education Manager: Sankara Sastry Rajanala

•  Membership Manager:  Rajan D.V.

•  Public Relations Manager: Uday Chava

•  Scholarship Manager: D. Vijayalakshmi

Newsletter Editors: Subash Babu and D. Vijayalakshmi

New volunteers in the INDUS team are:

•  Copy Editing: Ram Venkatraman

•  Layout: Sudipto Sengupta

 

City Representatives:

•  Bangalore: Akash Dubey

•  Chennai: Kiruba Shankar

•  Delhi: Pawan Nayar

•  Hyderabad: Vasant Vaidyanathan

•  Kolkata: Rakhi Bhattacharya

•  Mumbai: Vidyut Sonde

•  Pune: Manoj Bokil

3. President’s Address

The newly elected President, Makarand Pandit, briefly addressed the members at the meeting.

4. STC India Chapter Finance Status

Rohina Dhunjeebhoy, the chapter Treasurer, outlined the status of the chapter's finances and associated legal requirements now that the India Chapter is a registered society. Suggestions as to how best to utilize the funds available like the institution of a scholarship fund were discussed.

5. Open House

Frederick raised the topic of scholarships being awarded to students who are not doing full-fledged degree course in Technical Communication. Tharun, Susan, and Rohina clarified that the scholarship was awarded after receiving an application from the student and after he mentioned his willingness to come into this career. Also that decision is a step towards STC India Chapter getting visibility and giving back to the community.

Susan recommended that the web site designing work could best be outsourced to a competitive agency. The size of the chapter web site is growing and hence the need for professional help to manage it.

6. Director-Sponsor's Address

James Romano - the Director Sponsor of Region 6 (STC India Chapter belongs to this region) expressed his willingness to help the India Chapter in all possible ways. He also briefed the members about the efforts taken by STC to help other chapters worldwide and the related issues.

7. Action Items for 2005

The following are the major action items for the new councils and volunteers:

  • Conduct the next STC Conference in Hyderabad in 2005. Uday Chava will be the program manager for the conference. Uday to form a program committee comprising of local volunteers.

  • Conduct more learning sessions at the city level (City Representatives).

  • Get STC's Traveling online exhibits to India, preferably during the annual conference (President).

  • Sponsor good speakers to travel across cities to deliver learning sessions (Administrative Council).

  • Send STC India Chapter's nomination for STC Chapter Competitions (President).

  • Send chapter volunteers awards list to STC worldwide (Secretary).

Additional action items:

These could happen in the coming one year, but since these are long-term initiatives, we need volunteers to take up these responsibilities:

  • Explore the possibility of conducting one-day or half-a-day regional conferences all over India. These should be conducted in a such a way that the expenses are minimized (charges are not more than 400 or 500 per person. I would suggest that the city reps along with the other members in their region do this. This can be taken up as the topic of discussion on this list.

  • Try to network with other bodies in India like Computer Society of India, IEEE and Indian Society of Indexers. I would suggest that the vice-president does this

  • Communicate with Universities in major cities of India, leading educational institutes and the Universities Grants Commission. I would suggest that the education manager does this

  • Arrange phone seminars for STC India Chapter members. Speakers could be in or outside India.

  • Give lectures at various educational institutes about career in Technical Communication.

8. Vote of Thanks

Susan Alexander thanked the members for their participation in the meeting.

 

 

Learning Sessions

 

December 19, Bangalore

Janice (Ginny) Redish, noted author of technical communication books and an academic on technical communication, conducted two sessions in Bangalore on the following topics:

Using personas and scenarios for developing documentation and
other products

Ginny introduced the concepts of personas to the audience in an interesting way and made the participants take part in an exercise to identify the real users that they cater to. Using real-life examples from her vast experience as a technical communicator, Ginny explained how technical communicators can use personas and scenarios to improve usability of documentation and online/printed information. Packed with useful examples and research information, the presentation was very interactive and informative. The participants had a lot of questions for the presenter at the end. 

Developing documentation for people who do not have time to
read

In this presentation, Ginny's focus was on giving proven tips on developing effective documentation. Ginny demonstrated presenting information in several usable ways, so that users who do not prefer to read, can quickly locate and use the most important information. 

After the sessions, Ginny interacted with the participants personally and answered all their questions. Most of the participants felt that the sessions were highly useful and stressed the need to invite more expert speakers for the STC learning sessions.

November 20, Mumbai

An  STC learning session was held on November 20, 2004, at Savvion Pvt. Ltd, which paved way for a beautiful and an enriched beginning for the STC Mumbai learning sessions for the year 2005. The attendees were as enthusiastic as ever. The STC Mumbai representative began the day with a thanksgiving note and giving away the gifts as a token of appreciation to the trainers for weaving a year of magnificent STC learning sessions.

The attendees unanimously nominated Vidyut Sonde as the new STC representative for the coming year 2005. They discussed both the pros and cons of the previous year’s learning sessions and suggested some best practices for the coming sessions. Everybody willingly volunteered to extend the support to the new STC representative.

The participants eagerly discussed some issues that a technical writer faces such as coordinating with and getting input from the SMEs. Senior technical  writers shared their experiences on how they dealt with different situations. After the session, the attendees suggested their topics of interest for the forthcoming learning sessions in Mumbai. A conference call was held with Ramesh Aiyyangar, the STC India program manager to clarify the questions on the STC India annual conference. A few participants requested STC to consider Mumbai the venue for one of the future STC conferences.

(Compiled by Nandini Menon, Patni Computer Systems Ltd., Mumbai.)

October 16, Bangalore

STC India conducted two sessions at Oracle India on the following topics:

Quick tips on usability

Usability refers to a product attribute that defines the extent to which the product is user friendly. The challenge for any production team is to meet the usability requirements of a wide range of audiences. This session by Anirban Ghosh of Oracle was aimed at providing insights and tips on some of the important aspects of usability. The participants got an opportunity to learn the general rules of usability when developing content for the Web and creating a GUI, identify suitable controls when developing Web content and creating a GUI, using the color-usage guidelines of usability when developing content, and using the word-usage guidelines of usability when developing content. 

Working in remote teams: tips for effective collaboration

A lot of technical writers in India work in teams that are spread across the globe. Depending on the model followed by the organization, a technical writer needs to work with remote teams comprising managers, writers, editors, engineering, product management, or QA. This presentation by Tharun Unni of Facetime Communications, attempted to bring out some of the challenges involved in working in a global team and focuses on a few aspects that can help bring about effective collaboration across global teams. 

Oracle provided lunch at the event and the participants really enjoyed the hospitality of the hosts and the interactivity of the sessions.

September 26, Hyderabad

Vasanth Vaidyanathan and Vishnupriya Ramanujam from Nokia Enterprise Solutions conducted a learning session on the topic, “Reviews and Interviews” on September 26 at Virtusa (India) Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad.

The session proved to be a huge success because of the excellent facilities room provided by Virtusa and the quality of the learning session. Citec India sponsored lunch at the event. Regular learning session attendees were honored with gifts. The attendees got an opportunity to get their questions on the STC India annual conference by Ramesh Aiyyangar, Program Manager for the conference.

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