Thinking Out of the Box!

Most of us have out of the world ideas, right? Some of us dare to speak up, while others don’t! Crazy ideas and quirky habits go hand in hand. See a connection? No?

Well, clouds have been influencing me big time. They are dynamic, they keep moving and changing shapes. Instead of looking at clouds as meteorological phenomena, I look at them for inspiration and believe that they are constantly trying to communicate with us! I have been watching these majestic beings since childhood. 

When I was growing up, I tried to talk with “real life friends” about my passion or rather attachment towards clouds! All I received was weird looks. Already, I was labeled as a naughty tomboy character. In fact I was also called as ’Vaishnavan’…on top of all these, I was not keen in getting labeled as cranky! So, I stopped sharing about my secret friends. Instead, I started to take pictures and write about them.

Not just writing skills, my secret friends were constantly shaping my thought process and guide me in all walks of life! For example, often I’ve heard people saying ‘Every cloud has a silver lining!’ to console the depressed. But, it was difficult for me to comprehend the connection between dire situation and clouds with silver lining, until I saw them with my own eyes.

Once I was hurrying up for meeting with a difficult client. The skies looked dark and ominous. I already was apprehensive and thought that this impending thunderstorm would worsen and the traffic would play on my nerves. When I was about to get inside my car, I saw a dark heavy cloud traveling towards the way I was about to drive. I was sure that it is going to pour down massively. But, I think my floating friends decided to show me a magic and keep me level-headed. Suddenly the dark beauty it stopped moving, in the stillness I saw a fine white line along the edges. Subtly, the line widened to a silver border and in minutes the dark cloud was completely engulfed in the white light. Gone was the darkness! Amazing isn’t it?! You don’t have to be depressed about adverse situations, things will change!

Bunch of clouds gliding towards each other remind me of friends rushing to greet.  Colorful clouds, especially during dawn and dusk say that nature is the greatest painter!

See, with a crazy habit of watching the skies I am gifted with secret friends, with whom I communicate in my own terms. They keep coming to me at right times and add color to my life! 

I flow along with the clouds and see how they shape up. Best ideas, solutions come to me while I watch them. Whenever I’m at crossroads, I look up to my secret friends, clouds. They are there, as always!

Information - glut or organization?

An oft discussed subject, which intrigues me!

Information glut is the term we often come across in this Internet era. There is yet another group that complains that the lack of information is the main reason for not performing their tasks. Though this sounds highly contradictory, the cause for this should be examined carefully.

Advent of net has led to the availability of abundant information, which is not necessarily organized and it has become information glut. This disorganized content or rather information is not visible to the user in time of need. So it becomes very important for the organizations to implement a high level of information organization.

Is it worth to invest in information organization?

Naturally, to many of the small organizations this would sound as a improper measure. Information management means time, money and at the same time improving efficiency and effectiveness of the employees. The key behind organizing information is to build a knowledge base for the organization, which would not only help the current team but also for the future members of the organization to decide on a right course with confidence.

During the early stages of a project there would be few brain-storming sessions where lot of ideas are left unrecorded. At that moment, those ideas might sound far fetched or would be considered as not feasible due to certain limitations like time or money. When an organization has a right type of information organization system, every small idea could be recorded and stored for future use. This would come in handy, during the course of a project itself or for some other project. For instance, when there is a bottleneck in the project, you might have to revisit the ideas or scope of the project. In these situations, organized information would come be handy. Either the existing content would shed some light or they can even trigger you to come up with suitable solution.

Organized information becomes an asset, else it becomes chaotic and inaccessible.

Verbal Communication

Lately, am alone in a new country, where every experience is new and am in a situation where survival of the fittest is very true. So, am constantly on the lookout for ways to excel and stand out in the crowd.

I have been thinking why is there so much difference in the way we talk and the way we write? I guess I am not alone in this kind of dilemma. How often do we take effort to apply any strategy in speaking (verbal communications)? Most of the conversations tend to be reactive instead of pro-active, that is why people tend to face conflicts and arguments.

What would happen if we try to apply writing strategy when we speak? Am sure it would result in better and improved overall communications. In fact, conversations should be a lot simpler than writing, because, primarily the "audience" is in front of you, where as in written form of communication, you have an extra step of identifying your "audience" and you cannot even gauge the reactions of the reader.

Let me list down some of the writing tactics that I follow:

1. Analyze the topic and gather information
2. Come up with clear picture of what is required to write
3. Write a draft and revise
4. Get a feedback from appropriate resources, if necessary

Well, coming back to conversations, most often I have observed that we tend to listen and answer without giving a second thought. We forget that in this form of communication, often we don't have a chance to revise. Further, many fail to get a feedback. To overcome this issue, you can take simple steps that would go a long way in making "successful conversations":

1. Listen carefully
2. Try to give direct answer
3. If you are not sure of what is asked, instead of giving an answer, you should try to phrase the question in your own words and confirm with the other person.
4. After answering, instead of keeping quite try to get feedback by asking "have I answered your question?" or "is this what you were expecting"

By asking this kind of simple questions, you would have a chance to understand if you have really had a successful conversation, which goes a long way in building strong communication skills.

Mr Underappreciated & Mr Fixitall

Often documentation is the Mr Underappreciated in the business kingdom, who plays the role of Mr Fixitall! Yeah, I borrow these nick names shamelessly from Bedtime Stories:) It feels so good, when we see happy endings, right?

When I tried to get feedback from technical writers in various forums and discussion groups, I gathered that even most of us do NOT use documentation to learn something new! This could be because of the nature of our job where we tryout stuff first before documenting. Old habits die hard.

On the other hand, when I asked typical users about their opinion on documentation, the response was mixed. Some, tech savvy users said they preferred to experiment themselves and learn, instead of reading help. Another user commented that, when he searches help, it confuses him more by giving endless alternative suggestions. Yet another comment was that when I pay for something, I expect it to work for me and not make me study something! An extreme feedback was that this user had difficulties in accessing documentation itself. Now, this is a serious usability issue.

Coming back to the point, on how documentation is treated at the production level, am sure that it's high time that we come up with out of the box solutions to bring happy ending or rather happy beginning for documentation. It is just not enough to write context sensitive help, deploy in all possible formats. In today's era of viral marketing we could easily promote the use of documentation.

Just wondering how fast things can happen with viral marketing effect on networking sites. Take for instance, the US disintegration predictions of Dr. Igorum Panarin's Forecasts has gained momentum, just after The Wall Street Journal published an article on this topic. 

Trying to apply viral marketing concept to bring success for well deserved but least appreciated documentation, I would say that convince the team to "sell" documentation like the product itself. This would give a head start and bring documentation into limelight. This in turn, would bring users attention to the right source and ultimately achieve the goal.

Communicating through images - a fact finding journey

Though my profession is communicating mainly through words, I strongly believe in saying:

A Picture is worth thousand words!

Pictures can speak for itself and you can use words frugally to enhance the visual representation. In fact success of any project depends heavily on usability, be it a software hi-tech industrial equipment or any house-hold gadgets.

In the past several times I've been asked not to use screen shots and some of the lame excuses given were:

• maintenance is high
• what if there is no time to update screen changes in documentation?
  
• screen change is done with short notice, what if the writer dint learn about the changes or what if an update is missed out?

When you redesign or modify the screens, you do it for a particular purpose. Won't there be an equivalent task to update documentation as well? There could be errors or miss-outs, but not on a wholesale! In this case I can see issues in the work process that too at the decision making points rather than finding reasons for avoiding screen shots!

Well, I don't say or recommend capturing each and every screen for technical documentation. But for screens where user action is the deciding factor and the outcome is irreversible, I'd say visual presentation would be easier to understand.

When it comes to Technical Writing, target audience is the king and must assist him in every possible way to ease off his job in using or learning a product! Now, as I don't have to abide by any dogmatic rules, I've set out on a fact finding spree from professionals in the writing industry as well as "real" end users of various applications! Yes, I've started interviewing and plan to continue until the end of this month. Just within 24 hours, I've started getting amazing responses and I plan to use the findings in my upcoming project for a reputed international client, who appreciates my contribution!

Probably I would share the findings with groups that can make a difference in the arena of technical communication.

OUT - from a writers vantage

For the past few days I was coming home around 9 pm due to the targeted release of our project. Yesterday, after three years, I happened to work very late until midnight as I was involved in OUT (Overall User Testing) and some last minute wiki article editing.

To start with, I never used to like testing, as most often I've seen testers creating test data that involves mundane data entry. Moreover, I was a bit paranoid about testing because I felt that I might know too much of the nitty-gritty details. Knowing too much before writing a help topic might be dangerous, as I might skip some tips assuming that its a common knowledge!

But his time round I felt a different and in fact enjoyed it! may be because:

- I'm not writing for the end users/business users, in this project
- the role I played didn't involve data entry
- was something that I like and often do when I come across new online application/utility

What ever the reason is, I did learn to be a bit patient, which is a rare commodity for me! Just in these few days I've been like zombie and feel like am totally burned out! Then how about my friends there who have been working late for a couple of months! I just admire their stamina!

Best Bargain Books!

Roadside shopping in T.Nagar Pondy bazzar is always an unique experience to me. This time around I was scouting for books and see what I managed to buy for just Rs 710, which is around RM 50!!! Moreover, all these are new paperback versions and not second hand books!

The Interpretation of Dreams - Sigmund Freud
The Word - Irving Wallace
The Miracle - Irving Wallace
Doctors - Erich Seagal
If Tomorrow Comes - Sydney Sheldon
God of Small Things - Arundhathi Roy
To Cut a Long Story Short - Jeffery Archer
The Kitchen God's Wife - Amy Tan
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - Robin Sharma

I'd just started on the Freud's book. This is a English translation from the original German version. Though am intrigued and captivated on this subject, I find difficult to concentrate on long winding sentences. I wish the translation was done using simple English rather than the archic style!

More feathers added to my wizard's hat!

Lack of resources and time constraints I've been asked to do the requirements for some of the CRM related stuff. My first feather after a long time!

At first I was hesitant to take up the business related research. But then on the documentation front the approach is not firmed and it looks like it might be dragging, so this research comes as a relief.

I remembered an Indian proverb and its translation is "Laugh when misery hits". Practically am doing it now:p

Then comes the next feather in two days!! Then comes the next assignment, which is to do the global changes in the XML GUI definition files!! Well, now I'll be learning more on XMLs. This is a great opportunity too. See now, I'm so matured and think positive:):)