Hi Technical Communicators,
The India chapter of Society for Technical Communication (STC) is organizing its First Regional Conference for the year 2014 on 26 April (Saturday), 2014.
****************************************************************
STC India Chennai: Full-day Regional Conference – 26 April (Saturday), 2014
Exclusive Sponsor: HCL, Ambattur, Chennai
The session is FREE for both STC and non-STC India members.
****************************************************************
Venue: HCL, Chennai
Address: (AMB-4), 94, South Phase, Ambattur Industrial Estate, Ambattur, Chennai – 600 058
Landmark: Near Vavin Bustop & Mercedes Benz Showroom
Map: HCL, Ambattur
****************************************************************
Agenda
09.00 am – 09.30 am – Registration
09.30 am – 09.45 am – Inauguration
09.45 am – 10.45 am – Introduction to Video Tutorials – Kamalakannan Srinivasan
10.45 am – 11.00 am – Networking Break
11.00 am – 12.30 pm – Instructional Design: An Eye Opener – Swapna Reddy
12.30 pm – 12.45 pm – Group Picture
12:45 pm – 01.45 pm – Lunch Break
01:45 pm – 03.15 pm – Performance Management – Do or Die or Optimize? – Kiranmayee
03.15 pm – 03.30 pm – Networking Break
03.30 pm – 04.15 pm – Visuals in Technical Communication: Do they mean more or less? – Shanthi Balasubramanian
04:15 pm – 05:15 pm – Eliminating Wordiness in Technical Writing – Dinesh Kumar Nataraj
05.15 pm – 05.30 pm – Closure
About the Speakers
Kamalakannan Srinivasan (Kamal) has 19 years of experience in the IT industry of which the last 13 years were spent creating content for end-user documents, elearning materials, courseware, and video tutorials. During the last 3 years, Kamal has been working as a freelancer and delivered projects for organizations in Chennai, Bangalore, and Singapore.
Swapna Reddy is the co-founder and President Operations at Origin Learning. She has 14 years of experience in the eLearning industry and has worked with several companies including Element K, Sify eLearning, and NIIT. Her varied educational profile, including a post-graduation degree in Psychology, PGDBA from Indian Institute of Management – Kozhikode, and undergraduate studies in Literature, equips her to bring a unique perspective to training, operations, and research. Conceptualizing and creating instructional solutions and matching technology with pedagogy is her special area of interest and expertise.
Kiranmayee has 26 years of experience in the IT industry and has been working in the technical publication and knowledge services arena for 20 years now. She has presented in many forums, conferences and has won numerous awards for her presentations (won the best speaker award in the STC Annual conference 2004, and in the STC India Summit I in 2011). She has also won international awards for her work. She likes mentoring, teaching and sharing knowledge.
Shanthi Balasubramanian (Shanthi) has been a Technical Writer for the last 16 years, creating documentation for products, processes and projects. She is currently working as Team Lead – Technical Publication for MulticoreWare Inc., and is responsible for developer documentation.
Dinesh Kumar Nataraj has been associated with different companies in past like (BOSCH, Verizon, and Gilbarco-veeder) with 6.4 years of experience as Technical Writer, currently taking a break for personal reasons. Apart from work his interests are in exploring languages and Foooood.
Session Abstract
Introduction to Video Tutorials
- Creating a Script
- Recording voice using Audacity
- Recording video using Camtasia Studio
- Integrating voice and video
- Adding special effects
- Producing output
Instructional Design: An Eye Opener
New learning paradigms are coming up everyday – MOOCs, Youtube, On-demand LMSes, collaborative learning, and virtual digital worlds are just some of the things that are dramatically changing how people learn and access information. Instructional design is at the heart of this learning revolution and this session aims to give an overview of this niche field. It focuses on the differences between Technical Communication and Instructional Design while mapping the possible career paths for aspiring candidates. Through a case study, the session will also take the audience through the various phases in the training development life cycle and the role that Instructional Design plays in that process.
Performance Management – Do or Die or Optimize?
Work related activities are being aligned more towards organization’s business strategies. No wonder performance management is increasingly becoming a popular topic of discussion. Why the intense focus? The pressure at all levels is increasing; market share, expectations of the clients and customers, effective and execution of the business strategy, doing more with less; all these contribute to remain competitive. Are we aware of this corporate vision while looking at goal management and productivity at work? Do we cringe when we hear the term performance review or performance management? Or are we complacent about the entire process assuming that it is a premeditated result? What are the expectations and responsibilities of the manager and technical writer in a given fiscal year?
“Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality.” Ralph Marston
Visuals in Technical Communication – Do they mean more or less?
Sole or freelance technical writers are usually responsible for text as well as creation of visuals for a document. Hypermedia authoring packages and extensive clipart libraries has made this easily possible. However, there are certain rules for ascertaining the appropriateness of visuals in a particular context. At times, visuals may only seem to increase confusion or information anxiety for the reader. At other times, visuals may be completely redundant as the message is better conveyed through text. This presentation is about achieving the right balance between text and visuals to ensure that the right visuals are used for the job.
Eliminating Wordiness in Technical Writing
Do you find yourself writing sentences that are far too long? Have you ever re-read a sentence and struggled to finish it in one breath? If so, you may be suffering from something called prolixity, or in layman’s terms, wordiness. Wordiness is one of the most common mistakes and happens when a writer, either intentionally or unintentionally, uses far too many words or unnecessarily complex or abstract words. Wordiness can seriously detract from the coherency and quality of your writing and will likely frustrate your readers. I suggest several ways to help you avoid wordiness and increase quality.
About the Exclusive Sponsor
Over the past decade, HCL has been one of the fastest growing technology companies not only in India but in the world – even during the depths of the economic downturn. A combination of technical expertise and an innovative management philosophy that unleashed the innovative thinking of empowered employees, has been the source of HCL’s success even during the period of economic turmoil.
As a $4.5 billion global company, HCL Technologies brings IT and engineering services expertise under one roof to solve complex business problems for its clients. Leveraging our extensive global offshore infrastructure and network of offices in 26 countries, we provide holistic, multi-service delivery in such industries as financial services, manufacturing, consumer services, public services and healthcare.
For more information, refer to their Website.
Registration Details
This session is limited to 40 participants only.
Please register for this event by filling your details in the Registration Form.
Registration closes on 24 April 2014.
Registration for Webinar
We are looking at the possibility of having one or more session as a Webinar. You can attend the Webinar from anywhere. If you want to attend only the webinar, please send us an email so that we can share the link to the webinar on or before 25th April 2014.
Logistics/ Travelling to the Venue/ Pickup & Drop
If you need help with travelling to the venue, please write to us, we will look out for few carpooling options.
If you have any queries, please write to Aarthi (techiejune@gmail.com) or Saravanan at (sara.techwrit@gmail.com)