Technical Communication

A brief overview of Technical Communication as I am often asked what is it that I do.

Early Days of My Career 

I have been a Technical Communicator (Technical Writer) for over 8 years now. My career began at SunTec Business Solutions, located at Trivandrum. We were a small team and people often asked what we do. We would reply that we develop the Help documentation for the products you develop. It was easier to make understand at work. But back at home, which is at a rural place, and people are still not very familiar of the great advancements of technology, I had a difficult time explaining my Job Role. I simply used to say, when you buy a TV or phone, you get a User Manual. I similarly develop User Manuals for much complex software products. Not many understood what was a software product also. When I shifted to Bangalore to work with Sasken Networks, it was a bigger exposure. It was a Services company and we were a team of 50+ writers. Here, people knew who Tech Writers are and what they do.

What We Do

So to describe the profile, Technical Writers are those who prepare the documentation for the Software and Hardware Products. Documentation can range from simple Release Notes to complete Online Helps. Technical documents involving information to Install and Deploy a product, Use it, Troubleshoot Issues, etc, are typical projects that a Technical Writer usually works on. 

It is not as easy as said. One must learn the product, how it works, test each scenario before documenting it, and pay attention to very fine details. To get more clarification, we browse more on the topics, speak to the developers and SMEs, and go through all the Test Cases and Design documents prepared. In my experience, the research before the actual writing takes a long time and if done properly, makes your writing better and resourceful. 

Tools We Use

There are lots of Tech Writing tools available now. In fact, there are Technical Communication Suites also. The most popular ones are the Adobe Suite and the MadCap Suite. So we basically use good quality software to author a project, take screen captures, create flow diagrams, view the output, and even to create product videos. And yes, we use Content Management Systems to keep our work organized and safe.

Being an Effective Technical Writer

To be an effective Technical Writer, one must have a fair understanding of the domain and very good understanding of the product, apart from the tools and techniques of the trade. It helps a lot to refer existing documentation of competitor products and try to find gaps in the documentation of your product. The competitor documents may be better or even worse than your product's. But still, the comparison gives an insight of the different techniques being used. 

Language and writing skills are two other key skills that a good writer must have. Everybody can write. But writing effectively for an audience is not everybody's skill. A technically sound person can write, but it may not be comprehensible to the audience. So a successful Technical Writer is one who conveys even the most technical details in absolutely understandable terms, accurately, to the End User.  

And having said all these, I love my profession! There were times in my career when I thought that I made a wrong choice. But now I realize that it was just the lack of right opportunities.

Working vs Not Working - My Experience

One question that is often popped to the ladies during a first meeting or introduction - "Are you working?" It means whether you are employed or not.

I started my career in 2006 and was always employed without ever having an actual break till my maternity leave. My baby was born and I continued my maternity leave for 4 months. So whenever people asked this question, I would say, "Yes, returning to work soon." Then I started working from home for while. During this period, I stayed at my parents place in Kerala, and worked remotely. It was often assumed that I was not working as I was always at home and many were not aware of the concept of Working From Home. I didn't mind. But then things reached a situation that I had to take a break to balance my life. I was very unsure of the decision, yet I made it and quit my beloved job. 

Then started a new phase in my life. That was to stay at home, with a baby, and no job at hand. The initial days were fun. We had just moved into our new home and I had lots of craft plans. Each day I thought that the mess at home would be cleared and I could start a refreshing one tomorrow. But with a baby, who does not sleep, it was difficult. My chores at home never ended. I was always tired. It took me a month or two to finally unpack and get stuff organized and accessible. By now, though I had not a moment to spare, I felt that I was actually doing nothing. I would be at home all day and night. And to make it even worse, people (new neighbors at the apartment) would ask me the same old question. I would sadly look out of the window and see people commute to work. I longed to go back to my normal life. 

Finally, when my daughter started getting sociable and adjusted to the nap routine, I decided I had to look at my career again. I was able to get a job at a great place and now I am happy to answer that I am working mom.

I have derived few things from my experience:

- It is always good to be employed because you get to apply what you learned (may not be applicable for all disciplines), you are more organized, you earn your share of the family income, you are on a process of continuous learning.

- Not working does not mean that you are free. Many people think that housewives have no work. No! Dedicated and organized housewives have lot more of work.

- You can effectively work from home only when you have everything properly set at home - right from a place to work, kids are taken care of, house chores are taken care of, and you have the motivation to work.

- It is good to take a break after being employed for long. You can enjoy the small perks of life - like enjoy some quite evenings alone, watch a movie while completing the chores at home, call a friend without having to wait till meetings get over or for lunch break, water your plants without rushing and tend them, and so on.

Does this sum it up a bit?

Planning to write more often

How ironic! I am writer by profession and don't get to write my blogs at all. 

So what has been happening in my life - lots. I finally made up my mind to quit my job! It was hard to decide. I work with HP and the brand is a lot value. Deciding to give it up was not easy at all. I thought and tried for one year and finally put in my resignation in the month of January. Life was really hard the past one year. I struggled to balance my work and life. With my ever-crying baby, back-to-back project releases, the ever growing work at home, and the inability to lead a peaceful life... all these made me to arrive at this decision. 

I would be quitting work in the month of March. After that what, is not very concrete. I do have some plans. Let's see what materializes. There are lot of things I kept pushing off owing to my tight schedule. Apart from that, we bought a home some time back. Work was still going on and we could not move it. Last week, we were finally done with the registration and look forward to moving in by around mid of April or hopefully before that. So that is another big thing for us to look forward to.

My daughter, oh I just love her! She is now a year old and has changed a lot. She walks, babbles a lot, plays around, gives us kisses, and loves to cuddle with me. I just love those moments of being with her! We have been taken her out very often and she does love the whole process of going out. She loves to watch the dogs, cars, lights, butterflies, and children of course. She is a keen observer and has started imitating sounds and our mannerisms.

And about me, I miss a lot of being myself! I have no time to craft. I do not sleep comfortably. I cannot watch movies uninterrupted. In fact, everything just revolves around my angel now. I do love that though :-)

That's all for now. Hope you keep writing more often.

Too much...

... has been happening around me!

Yes, I am a new mom. As if dealing with the new-mom-blues was not enough! My parents left back for Kerala when my baby completed 5 months. And I started working from home. Juggling with baby care, work, and household tasks was leaving me with no time and space for anything else. I had long To-do lists everyday and most of the items kept getting carried over to the next day. Same with my work too. I somehow kept pushing it. Late night work, attending calls and meetings, trying to keep myself motivated, everything seemed least achievable. My only soothing times used to be the late evenings when hubby returned from work and used to take over the baby care. I used that slot for cleaning, taking a shower, and cooking. And late nights, after she slept, I used to do my office work.

Things were running so when another thing happened. One Friday morning I receive a call from my husband saying he met with a minor accident on the way to office and has a shoulder fracture. I really didn't know what to do - having an infant, I cannot just leave home like that. Luckily hubby's colleagues were with him and I waited till he was back. Finally he came back wearing a hand sling and shoulder cross belt. He was in pain. Doc asked him to take rest for 6 weeks. My misery started there. This incident initially meant that hubby would not be able to actively participate in baby care. But there were more to it. The pain was excruciating for him. He used to wake up at nights, could not sleep, wanted to have the belts readjusted, and for everything, poor thing, he needed my help. And my baby, she too!

There were days when I slept for just 2 hours. My whole body and mind ached. I just wanted things to be on track as before as quickly as possible. But even after a week, hubby's pain did not subside and he could feel the bone fragments moving inside. A second opinion, and we discovered that there were multiple fractures and surgery was the only way. What!!!

We prepared to get the surgery done within 2 days. My dad came down. Hubby was hospitalized for a week. I used to reach the hospital in the morning with my baby, stay there the entire day with her, and leave for home at night. Phew! 1 week somehow passed. When dad left, in-laws came down for a week. And they also left.

Now we are back to being mom, dad, and baby at home. Baby - rolls and rolls over, does not sleep during the day, is very active, wants mommy with her always, and is ready to cry the moment mommy is out of sight. Dad - recovering slowly, but still needs help with dressing the wound, and anything that involves using both the hands, taking medications, and some cause side effects, which again cause some problems. Mommy - taking care of both, doing my work, somehow balancing things at home, and now the late night sittings periods have extended.

All said, I have no complaints. I love each moment of being with both of them :-)

Trying...

Being a little unhealthy for a while, a trip down to Kerala for a week, again a week of unhealthiness, and a short period of being lazy - all these kept me AGAIN away from the blogosphere.

I am still recovering from what I have of the left over cough, trying to be active and pleasant always, and trying to keep up with the quickness of time!

Getting Back on Track

A month since I even saw my blog... Weird... I know. But yes, there were a lot of things happening around me. We shifted from our old lovely house to the new one. Though I am not so much in love with the house and surroundings as I liked the old one, I am getting adjusted. The silver lining that keeps me going is that we'll be moving out from this place soon :-) Yes, I know, one more shifting. So it took us quite some weeks to bring things to order at the new place. Now travelling to office takes a while longer for me. So in the evenings, we get very less time to do things at home. And over the last one week, work took away most of my time. There was a lot to get done in a short span. And finally that is almost done now and I am almost getting back to normalcy [;-)] now. My health also had not been the best, which again kept tiring me out. 

Now everything seems to have fallen on track. My weekdays start very early these days as I have to be at the bus stop a lot earlier than before. And I reach home almost an hour later than I used to. But one good part about moving to this place is that hubby's office, which earlier used to be 25kms away is now just within 10 kms and he reaches much earlier than before. 

So I may start blogging as usual going forward. See you :-)

Shifting

Shifting from a house is, according to me, a very tiring and painstaking task. Reason, once you have decided to move, there are a lot of tasks involved. Changing postal addresses, getting TV, Internet connections, newspaper, and the like disconnected or discontinued. Sort out all the things you plan to take with you and keep the rest apart. Out of the unwanted stuff, again sort which has to be thrown in the trash and that which can be sold off or given to someone else. Get boxes to pack your stuff (in all required dimensions). Then slowly start packing your things. But be sure to keep your essentials out till you pack. This usually goes wrong with me. I would pack something thinking that it is not required till I move, but that proves wrong. I may have to open the packet again or buy a new one. So one solution is to not seal your boxes till the last date. Just close them and keep it around so that you can dig in and find something if it is urgent. Pack the not much used vessels in the kitchen. Pack all your decorative items in the living room and those lying around else where. And so the tasks go on and on.


The reason I am saying this (you might have already guessed) is because we are shifting AGAIN! It was a quick decision based on some situations. We finalized on the locality to which we wanted to move and for weeks kept searching online as well as roaming around there searching for a house suiting our requirements. Finally we found one (though there were some complexities involved). We decided everything and had a word with the owner and yes, we are planning to move over this weekend, if everything goes as planned. It is a newly constructed apartment and so yes, I am saved from that dreaded task of cleaning up the old tenants' mess. Unlike the house we are in now, we may not have a private terrace and lots of plants. I will definitely miss that. But the new place is airy and bright. I like that. And before marriage, I was living in this same locality. So everything looks fine.


The house we are in now is in a bad shape now owing to all the boxes around, stuff piled up here and there, and there is a lot of chaos. I am having a tough time deciding on what to pack, what not to pack, what to throw, and so on. Throwing away things is a great pain for me. I cling on to things emotionally. So overcoming that is the toughest part. Then we have a few things to be given away which we are still finalizing on. Hubby does help a lot in the packing and moves around all the heavy things :-)


And saying about the current house we are in now, it has been one of the best places we were in yet. The house was spacious and great. The locality was nice. We loved the balcony, terrace, and my plants. I loved the stairs in the house. Some of the best things of our life happened when at this house. And it never seemed to be small when we had friends and family visiting. Once we had around 10 people staying in the house. Yet there was enough room and everything was in order. We really loved this house. But priorities in life change, and we have to move on! :-)


So you might understand our plight now. And once we shift, again it takes almost a month or so's time to settle down in that place. I am just hoping that time passes quickly till that phase and everything should be smooth.


See you all....

Over the past couple of weeks

Its been a long while now. Not that my life is not sweet anymore. It is just busy! My job keeps me busy during the day and once home cooking and other things keep me even busier. Phew, I just wait to get the chores done and lie down on the bed. Crafting also is slow. Gardening involves only watering the plants now. I have not been planting anything new. Reason - we will be going out of town for a week. I have made a temporary arrangement to get my plants watered for a few days. So didn't want to plant anything new during this phase.

And when I say out of town, it obviously means going down to Kerala. Its been some time now that we visited our families. So we are just eagerly waiting for it to be the weekend and hoping that the next week goes sloooowly. Though we know that what awaits us there is the hot humid climate, lots of travels, and tiredness. But still we love all those when in Kerala :-)

Here, over the past few weeks we had been doing some shopping. Yarn shopping topped the list. I did purchase two bagfulls of yarn while I went to Commercial and Raja Market. Next on our list was baby girl dresses for my husband's brother's kid. We often get exhausted shopping for her because all baby dresses are cute and we have a tough time deciding the best ones. On one of my ventures to the Commercial street I found some cute aprons which I readily picked up. They looked like the Cath Kidson aprons and there were a lot with floral prints and pleasant colors. Some baking supplies also came along - cute measuring spoons and silicon cup cake moulds and oven spreads. Those would have to wait until I am back to be used though. Then I did a little bit of fabric shopping as well. Well, I have improved a bit on my sewing front. I have been successful in stitches a couple of kurtis for myself and now hubby agrees for fabric shopping also without a change in expression ;-) I don't remember what else we shopped for. I just know that my travel bag is almost full now. Need to dump in our clothes more, and we are good to go.

The next few days will be even more hectic for me. Finishing off all the perishables in the kitchen, shifting the pots to a shady location, cleaning the house, making a list of essential things to do before going, paying off the bills for the month, doing the last bit of shopping, laundering, folding, ... phew!

Beginning to get Greener

There is a lot of sprouting activity happening in the pots on my terrace and in the kitchen. Each day I see tomato sprouts, tendrils on the green pea shoots, chillies foilage, lovely red leaves on the red spinach, and many more eyes and buds on the stem cuttings. I literally love to see the buds and sprouts. It makes my heart jump with joy.

Yesterday hubby and me transplanted tomato and chilly seedlings into their originally intended pots.

What I hate and love both about gardening is my hands getting dirty. I am not using any gloves (I may have to start using though) and initially don't like messing up my fingers in the sand. But once I start the digging and raking and my hands are dirty, I end up playing in the sand like a kid only to realize how dry my hands become later.

I intend to transplant the red spinach seedlings next week. Taking pictures are really difficult these days. By the time I reach home, it almost starts getting dark and so am not able to click pictures that do full justice to the beauty of the leaves and shoots.

Dried to Green

My plants have been in a pity state for a quite some time now. There were many evenings when I was so busy to go up to the terrace and water them and many a days I completely forgot owing to the other jobs I had at hand. And to top all these, we had to travel for a couple of days on short notice without being able to make arrangements to water the plants. Result,



Yes, all my plants dried. One or two which were strong enough to survive, I gave them ample of time to wither.

Now my terrace has just a lot of pots with soil and no greens.

So what am I doing now? I am replanting. I started on with taking the soil out of the pots, aerating them properly, and filling it back. There are 26 pots - small, medium, and large. Till date, I have been able to refill only 9 pots. It takes a lot of time for this task as the soil has kind of got set in the pots. So before I start on the raking, I have to water the pots, wait for some time and then start off. Once half way through the pot is raked out, I can tilt out the rest of the soil. This is easier in the smaller and medium sized pots. But doing it alone for the big pots is very difficult owing to the weight. I left out those pots for a day when hubby is at home. Currently, each day, after office hours, I get around 30 minutes at home, before it gets dark. In this time, I am able to complete the refilling process for three pots.

So in the 9 pots I have refilled, I have started sowing seeds and putting cuttings. Indoors also I have started sowing seeds so that they sprout quickly and don't get dried up in the hot sun these days.



Well, lot of work is still left to be done to make my garden healthy, green, and lively again!

End and Beginning

Finally said goodbye to 2011 and started on with 2012. Everything seems normal and okay till now. I haven't taken any new year resolutions as I know resolutions never work out for me. Just taking life in the pace it is coming to me.

As usual there was the annual company shut down for a week. So got a few days off and went down to Kerala. As always, it was hectic - travelling. And the days went past so quickly that within no time it was time to board the bus back to Bangalore. For a few days, my co-sister and kid came and stayed with us. It was joyful when they were here. The kid is just a year old and now learning to speak and walk. It is hilarious when she tries to speak - alien words and phrases. But her expressions are cute. Walking is another nice part. I love to see the way she falters when she tries to walk without help. And even better is to watch her yawning when waking from a deep sleep. So cute!

On the day of New Year, they went back to Kerala. We were back to being the two souls in the big house, lonely! Going back to office seemed very painful after the vacation. Now we are falling back on track and hoping for the best in this new year!

Hope you all had a wonderful time!

A day at Home

Yesterday was a slow day for me. I did not go to work and got to spend the whole day at home relaxing. Hubby had been to work and there was food so that I didn't have to cook (and waste time ;-)). My time was spent in the following order till evening - reading, crochet, reading, crochet, sleeping, crochet, and reading. Whoa! I just loved it.

In the evening, an idea suddenly struck me - Swiss Roll. I love this thing and had been wanting to make it from a long time. And the day arrived yesterday. I was happy that all the required ingredients were there in the kitchen. I browsed through a couple of recipes and started on the process quickly. Within half an hour, the Swiss Roll was ready. The only improvement required, as I felt, was that I had to beat the eggs a little more to have made the cake softer. But that's fine; Next time! And I was really thrilled with the result. I didn't have the patience to even photograph it. Bro, hubby, and me finished it within no time!

Reading and Reading

This weekend, we spent it completely at home. The climate is changing and the days are usually very cold these days. So the whole of Saturday and Sunday we spent at home - under the blankets or in the sunlight available. Cooking took a very back seat. I made easy stuffs as I didn't want to stand in the cold kitchen. Even worse was while doing the dishes. The water was also cold. And on Sunday I did all the laundry and sweeping the rooms. The rest of the time I spent in reading.

Now that my Twilight collection has arrived, it is very difficult to close the book and do some other chore with a clear mind. Within a day and a half I completed reading the second book of the series - New Moon. And yesterday evening I started with the third - Eclipse. I like the descriptive nature of the books.

Additionally I did a little bit of crochet also. Though I am not progressing much, I would like to finish the Big Pink Blanket before the end of this year. Hopefully I'll be able complete it soon.

A depressing and addictive weekend

This weekend was a little depressing one for both me and hubby. My parents left for Kerala. Last week my brother also had come down for a small vacation. And now that everybody is gone, the house seems so empty and silent. And we are not liking the silence at all!

They left on the morning of Saturday. The whole of Saturday we spent indoors, literally doing nothing other than watching some movies. I was too sad that I didn't want to go out or even do anything interesting. Somehow we managed to finish the day.

Sunday seemed a little better. We completed bits of tasks at home like washing and cleaning. Together we did many of the tasks and we were coming to terms with being just the two of us again after so long. After the work, we went out. And to make it a bit interesting, we tried the Bangalore Metro service. Except for the rush and some waiting, it was good. We got down at the MG Road Terminal and headed off to the Commercial Street. We did some yarn and other shopping. It was after a long time that we spent some time together and it did actually seem nice. After lunch, we boarded the Metro back to Baiyappanahalli. It was quick enough.

Once back I watched the first two movies of the Twilight Series and was completely in a different world for the rest of the day. I must say admit that it is indeed addictive and I have already ordered for the complete set of books of the series. Waiting eagerly to receive the set now.

Planning

Day seems to be a bit dull today - its cold and gloomy. I have been in bed for very long, thinking whether to get up or not. Finally I did. Husband is not in town, so I am thinking of planning my to-do things today. And unlike always, today's list does not include any cooking, cleaning, or washing. I am planning things that I want to do.

I want to make some progress on the reading I have been doing, continue working on my crochet (Big Pink Blanket), take out some time alone for myself, and finally catch up on a little bit of sleep I lost, if possible. So these are what I have planned.

Though these are planned, born as a girl I am, I have to do or help around with the household work, especially cooking. And cooking is what I hate the most at times. But, can't help. So let me see how the day goes.

Changing...

Over the past few days, my perspective is changing. To life and the way I live it. I did a thinking and comparison of many things in life. I started with the changes that have come over me during the past few years; and the difference seemed shocking to me. The difference - I used to read a lot, hang out with friends past college/office hours and over the weekend also, explore new things, keep in touch with friends via phone or meet them, watched a lot of movies, and also used to take out a lot of time for only myself.

But now, my life has become kind of planned I'll say. Earlier each day was different. Nowadays, I know what my tomorrow will be and how I am going to spend my weekend. There is nothing NEW. The reason - once I became busy with life and work, I just chalk out the plans and try to stick to it. There is no time to experiment or even think of the life I was leaving behind.

The interesting things I do in my life now are my crochet, gardening, baking, and spending time with my husband. Though these do give me pleasures in different levels, I miss the pleasures of the things I am not doing now. One step-at-a-time, I am planning to keep adding more enjoyable activities to my life. As a matter of change, I have already started reading. Though I do not have that pace I had earlier, I am slowly trying to catch up. I am reading Twilight. And hubby is also travelling over the weekend. So it seems like I am going to have a lot of time to myself. Let me see how much I can finish.

Yesterday and Today

The date seemed interesting yesterday 1-11-11. And nine days later from today it will be 11-11-11. Even more interesting!

Well, the whole of my yesterday was spent in organizing and reorganizing. Wondering what I was organizing so much? Just the cupboard in my room. Actually the whole of the room seemed in a messy state. So I took up the task of putting it back in a better shape. I started with the cupboards and that itself took up almost all of the time. I pulled out all the clothes, did some sorting, unfolding and refolding. And finally the result looked nice. And that is all what I wanted.

Nowadays it is raining very often and it is a lovely sight to watch. Even now, as I type, it is raining very heavily. Love the rains also. I guess it has been a long long time since I got drenched in the rains and enjoyed it. May be did that when I was in college. Missing those lovely days!

A well lit up and noisy day

We celebrated Diwali yesterday. It was not that fun as I intended it to be, but I did enjoy. I had planned to burst few crackers, light diyas, and make a rangoli. But out of the three planned items, only one materialized - lighting diyas around the house. We could not buy crackers on time and I could not make a rangoli as well. But I was very contended when I saw all the diyas lit up.

Lighting up the diyas was very difficult. The winds kept blowing it off. My initial plan was to keep the diyas all along the stairs. After almost 8 failed attempts to keep them buring, I finally decided to keep them away from the stairs and kept those at the entrance of the house. That looked very pretty and they kept burning till almost midnight.

Initially we had plans to buy and burst crackers but then we were late and could not get any. And finally we decided not to burst any. There were so many crackers and fireworks all around that our Mittu was so scared. Likewise, all the stray dogs were running here and there helplessly and the birds and bats kept flying constantly out of the fear. This was a sad sight. So we didnt want to harm them any further. All of us gathered on our terrace for some time and watched the beautiful fireworks. I hate the noisy crackers but enjoyed the lights.

Finally when the city became calm, the air was smokey. But luckily it was a bit windy, so the smell and particles drifted away slowly. At around 11 pm everything was normal and that is when Mittu could atleast start sleeping peacefully. And the night was beautiful - windy and the clouds were drifting across the sky and it was cool also.

Monday Morning

Somebody just asked me why I am looking a bit sad. Monday mornings always make me sad. This has been true since school days. But today I am actually a bit sad owing to some personal things. Blogging to make myself cheerful :-)

Weekend was not a great one, but it was okay. Saturday was spent in helping Mom in the kitchen and some small activities at home. Sunday morning was real busy. We did a lot of work at home. Washed, cleaned the balcony, sowed some seeds, cleaned our shoe rack, which had a lot of unused shoes, started sewing a small project, and so on. So Sunday morning was very busy for us. By the evening, all of us went out visiting a family. And after coming back, me and hubby went out roaming in the nearby area. Once we were back, I was too sleepy and went to bed very early yesterday. So ended our very longingly waited weekend!

This week hubby is having two days off for Diwali while I have just one day off. Last year, for Diwali, we just celebrated by bursting crackers. This year , I am thinking we must celebrate it a bit more as my parents also are here. I plan to light some diyas, make a rangoli (if done, this would be my first attempt), and finally burst crackers :-)

Waiting for the Weekend

I had been away from my blogs for more than a month. And now I am back. As always - lazy and little busy.

Its a Friday and though the day begins with a meeting, Friday is always good. It is just like the cloud with that silver lining. Once it is 5 pm, I get so elated and happy. So I am just waiting for the weekend to start. We haven't planned anything for the weekend but I do have some things in mind. Hope it works out. Though it is almost the end of October, winter has not yet started here in Bangalore. The days are pretty hot and sunny. So going out is always subject to a lot of discussions and laziness.

Just looking forward to go home!