STC India Workshop on "Enhancing your Career Skills" at Bangalore April 3, 2009

Hi all,

The India chapter of Society for Technical Communication (STC) is organizing a 1-day workshop on "Enhancing your Career Skills" in Bangalore on April 4, 2009.

We have lined up multiple topics, which would help you in enhancing your skills.

Schedule for the event
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9:00 AM to 9:15 AM - Welcome Speech

9:15 AM to 10:15 AM - "So, you're thinking of becoming a Technical Communicator" by Susan Alexander

10:30 AM to 11:30 AM - "The Seven Principles of Technical Writing" by Ram Venkatraman

11:45 AM to 12:45 PM - "Professional Development Through Continuing Education" by Kumar Dhanagopal

1:00PM to 2:00 PM - Lunch

2:00 PM to 3:00 PM - "Career Path for Technical Writers" by Michelle Cherian

3:15 PM to 4:15 PM - "Making Professionalism A Habit" from Vasanth Vaidyanathan

4:30 PM to 5:30 PM - Panel Discussion on "Is it easy for writers to be entrepreneurs? Yes/No? Why" (panelists: Rakesh Shukla, Usha Mohan, and Pradeep Vasudev)

Speakers
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Susan Alexander

Susan Alexander has around 23 years experience in the technical communication field. She began her career as a research assistant at Harvard Business School. Susan later worked as a technical writer/ technical editor/ and technical communications manager at companies such as Sonata Software, TCS, TI India, and Sallie Mae Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd.
An MBA from Bentley College, USA, Susan founded the Bangalore-based technical writing firm, Write Concept in 2000. Write Concept undertakes technical writing projects on a turnkey basis and also provides technical writing resources to organizations that require their services. In addition, Write Concept conducts technical writing training at the individual and corporate level.
Susan has always been an active member of the STC India Chapter.
She was the chapter's Education Manager from December 2000 to December 2002 and the chapter Secretary in 2003. Susan was STC India Chapter President in 2004. Susan has presented papers at international conferences organized by the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and IEEE Professional Communication Society (IEEE PCS).

Michelle Cherian
An accountant by profession, Michelle ventured into technical communication during her long stay at Texas Instruments (TI). With a post graduate degree in Commerce, post-graduate diplomas in Business Management and Systems Administration from NIIT and good writing skills, she had just the right credentials.
She began writing internal user documents for TI's ASIC division in 1998 and progressed to user manuals, reference guides, and release notes. She moved to a startup company called SoftBrands in 2002 for a year where as a lone writer her main work was creating online help for several web based hospitality products. She moved to Misys Financial Systems in 2003 where she built and led a team of 5 permanent writers and also coordinated the work contract writers and writers overseas for Retail Banking Products.
She moved to BEA Systems in 2006 where she worked on user manuals and online help and release notes for the Middleware domain.
She is currently with Cisco Systems as a senior technical writer in the IOS software documentation team. She has 10.5 years experience in technical writing and has worked extensively with the STC India chapter spending 4 years as an admin council member - 2 years as the Treasurer and 2 years as Vice President.

Kumar Dhanagopal
Kumar Dhanagopal works as Principal Technical Writer at Oracle. In the past, he has worked at Bosch, Intel, SAP, and BEA Systems for over 14 years in all, 9 of them as a technical communicator. He is currently the Vice President of STC's India chapter. On weekends, he teaches technical communication to post-graduate students of Christ University. Kumar believes that continuous learning, be it on the job or in the classroom, is essential to perform and grow in any profession. In his session, Kumar will discuss the advantages of setting aside time for learning, the different ways in which we can acquire new knowledge and skills, obstacles to continuous learning, and how we can overcome those obstacles.

Ram Venkatraman
Ram works at Cisco Systems in Bangalore and manages a team that produces technical documentation for Cisco IOS XR operating system, CRS-1 and XR 12K series routers, and Broadband Telephone Services. Before joining Cisco, Ram worked as technical writer at Sun Microsystems.
Ram migrated from journalism to technical writing in 1999 after completing a 1-year certificate program in technical communications at the De Anza College in California. During the dot.bomb days, he went back to journalism and edited a newspaper in the SF Bay Area for a couple of years before returning to technical writing. Ram coaches writers in his team on content organization, structured writing, and soon will take part in the migration of documents to XML/DITA based architecture. His other interests include travel and travel photography.

Vasanth Vaidyanathan
Vasanth holds a bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication engineering, and a masters degree in software systems. His wide industry experience areas include software development, technical support, release engineering, performance testing, and technical documentation. Vasanth is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM). He is a senior member of Society for Technical Communication (STC), and is the Immediate Past President of STC India chapter. He has presented papers in several conferences. Vasanth won the "Best Paper" award in the PMI APAC conference held in India (2005). Vasanth is currently a Documentation Manager at Consona Software, Bangalore.

Panelists
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Usha Mohan (from Triumph India)
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Usha Mohan is the one of the senior Tech-Comm professionals in India. She pioneered the concept of offering Technical Writing as a service and set up Triumph India about a decade back. Today, Triumph continues to be the largest pure play, 150 strong technical writing services company having its offices in India, China and USA.

Couple of things that heralds Usha as the torch bearer of our industry:

- She brings extensive hands-on experience of executing large scale documentation projects. In fact Triumph carries the privilege of setting up large Offshore Documentation Centre’s for its customers (not principals) in India.
- She has also been instrumental in setting up the first Quality Management System (QMS) for documentation projects. The QMS setup at Triumph for this kind of outsourced project management activity is again first of its kind in the world. She is a member of the Society for Technical Communication.
- She has been instrumental in creating and nurturing the Tech-Comm talent pool. To quote numbers, Triumph has churned out close to 400 technical writers who are today major contributors in our industry. In the management context, she has envisioned and created roles like General Manager, Sr. Managers, Quality Manager, Lead Writers – all in the realm of Technical Writing.

Apart from managing Triumph, she spends a lot of time on social initiatives. She is a member of the Rotary Club of RT Nagar and actively participates in their social initiatives. She works with the children of Corporation School Ganga Nagar and takes active part in Polio Eradication campaigns. A sports and nature enthusiast, she plays table tennis, tennis, and loves trekking! An amateur veena player and an avid reader, she loves to cook, play scrabble, and shoot pictures of her family!

Rakesh Shukla (from The Writer's Block)
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Rakesh Shukla is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Writers Block (TWB). Rakesh has formidable experience in the field of business management and strategy, especially in technology driven businesses.
Rakesh is responsible for the overall growth objectives of TWB and has led the company from scratch to being the leader in technical documentation services in Asia. Before setting up TWB, Rakesh was the Director - APAC of jNETx Inc - the world's leading provider of Telco service delivery platforms. He has previously had several stints with companies such as Hughes/Flextronics Software Systems, Sasken Communications, and River Run Software Group. He has a rich experience of P & L responsibility for business lines including for budgets/funding, strategy design, marketing, development and staffing decisions, and has moved several business from languishing 'dog businesses' generating multiples of USD$ 50K - to a star business generating several million USD. Rakesh is also the co-founder of One97 (www.one97world.com). Started in 2000, One97 is one of India's leading mobile VAS companies and has present revenues of over $5 Million.
When he isn’t planning product development or implementing business strategies, Rakesh paints, spends time with his cars and bicycles, and listens to what he likes to term as ‘great music’.

Pradeep Vasudev (from Collabis Consulting)
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Pradeep Vasudev is the VP India of Collabis Consulting Pvt. Ltd., a documentation company. Before Collabis, Pradeep was Documentation Manager at Oracle India Pvt. Ltd. Pradeep has been in the documentation business since 14 years.

Venue
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The workshop will be held at NetApp Labs Bangalore

Here is the complete address:
NetApp India Private Limited
3rd Floor, Fair Winds Block
EGL Software Park
Off Intermediate Ring Road
Bangalore 560071
+91.80.4184 3000

Participation Fee
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Free for STC members
Rs.150/- for non-STC members

How to register for the event
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Please visit the following hyperlink to register for the event:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cE9wWU43NEVEYi1LRzV3RXEzb0V5Q3c6MA..

You can pay the registration fees directly at the venue.

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Registrations close on April 2, 2009
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If you have any queries, please write to me at swami@mrmwrites.com. Please do not discuss this event on the mailing list.

Thanks and Regards
Swaminathan Moorthy
Employment Manager - STC India Chapter