Rajdeep shares his vision for STC and also a vote appeal.
Please note: Voting for STC elections starts 29th February and ends 9th March. Only members who have renewed their membership for 2016 by 1st February will be eligible to vote in this election. Click here to renew. Check out more about election candidates on the STC election site, or ask a question on the election forum.
Greetings!
I am Rajdeep Gupta. At the outset, let me thank you for being a constant support to STC. A big thank you to all the past and current office bearers who have done a great job in making STC success and torchbearer in the field of technical communication. It is indeed a privilege and joy to be a nominee for STC Director role. Thank you!
I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the candidates running for the office this year [ 2016 STC Election ] and make an ardent appeal to the members to cast their valuable votes. We need you.
I am passionate about technical communication and Society for Technical Communication (STC). I am associated with STC from 2007 and am proud of my STC association for the last 9 years.
STC has been a constant source of knowledge and the community offers me encouragement to dream and aspire things in technical communication. For 9+ years, I learnt the art of content development and how it is an invaluable asset in product and services organization.
I am indebted to STC, which has provided me a platform to take up leadership roles, including the award-winning STC India Chapter President, Vice President, Secretary, and Program Manager for multiple STC India Conferences. I am a proud recipient of the STC DCSA award. I am fortunate to be a member of the Academic SIG for the past few years and acted as a Student Program coordinator in the 2015 STC Summit (Columbus). I was one of the paper proposal reviewers for the 2015 STC Summit too.
I am currently volunteer for the Bangalore City Rep organizing webinars, learning sessions and competitions. I am also a member of the 2016 STC CAC Outreach team working for the student chapters. These experiences have been extremely rewarding to me both personally and professionally, and now I would like the opportunity to help shape the future direction of STC as a Director.
My work experience has been diverse starting as a technical writer working in the areas of Mobile Technology, Health, and Banking. I delved a bit in usability before moving to Sales and Business Development. I was working with Author-it as Business Development Manager (South Asia). I have experience working with clients on various models, creating strategies, and have traveled abroad on work assignments too. In 2014, I launched my startup Blue Dots Consultancy Services offering services in Training, Staffing, Digital Marketing and so on. I am an MBA in Information Systems and have a Diploma in Cyber Laws.
In terms of my personal goals in service to the Society, there are several things that are important to me. First, it is important we continue to find new ways to make the membership valuable and make members understand its value. My first priority is my members. I think we are doing well but we need to do a lot more. We need to understand that members drive activities and need to find ways providing more recognition to volunteers. We need to work with various community leaders, understand their vision, drive, and contribute to their sustainable activities and be a part of their success.
Second, STC must consider organizing web conferences and not restrict itself to a Summit. This web conference can be streamed and viewed in any part of the world and will be available to the chapter members for FREE. There has to be more focused learning and webinars on Augmented Reality, Gamification, Digital Marketing, and so on.
Third, STC must work with chapters all around the world much more closely. We need to have a monthly call where all the chapter leaders get a chance to address their issues, plans, or vision to the board. I like to see STC honor the hard work and time others contribute to the society activities.
Fourth, STC needs to think about the SIGs. I am a member of couple of SIGs but I don’t see much activity happening. We need to sustain activities in SIGs instead of creating new ones. Each SIG must consider conducting learning sessions, competitions and so on at least once in every quarter.
Fifth, STC’s job database needs to have a relook in terms of sales strategy. It can be a constant stream of revenue for the chapters if it can work with the prospective employers. In times of crisis, it can serve as a constant source of employment opportunities for consultants as well as for folks who come to a new city and are looking out for contacts for their jobs. STC can set up a job database where an office bearer can help the prospective people with immediate information and make their job search easier.
Sixth, we are technical communicators and we conduct conferences every year. There has to be a database or library, which can act as storage of the activities conducted every year. It can help the incoming board and the council with a lot of helpful information.
Finally, we need to see more new faces in leadership roles. I want to see more people nominating themselves as volunteers. You also need to exercise your rights to cast your valuable votes. Remember together we can do a lot of good things for the community and it is you who are going to make this a success.
All said and done, I thank you for going through my message. As I said previously, there is a joy in volunteering for the Society of Technical Communication. I urge everyone to come out and take part in STC activities. This is another opportunity for me to promote and advance the work of technical communicators as a Director for the Society.
Regards,
Rajdeep Gupta
Candidate for STC Director-2016
http://www.stc.org/director/item/rajdeep-gupta