The Leap - Magazine for and by Technical Writers

Communicare
Dear Fellow Community Members!
Welcome to our first Regional Conference of Writers in 2018. Writers (technical writers, instructional
designers, and content writers) in the IT field talk to their products more than they talk to themselves.
For a change, let’s talk to the community members—we, the STC Hyderabad team, are trying to build
a platform where writers can join hands and share their learning and experience. Our learning sessions
have been a great success and now we bring you the regional conference. Our hope, whether you’re an
individual, company, or student, is that you take away something from it.
Any conference cannot be successful without the participants, speakers, panelists, and hosts. So thank
you all, we are so humbled by your response. And yes, no thank you is enough for our volunteers, who
relentlessly worked day and night to make this happen, you are our backbone—hats off to you!
This rendezvous, fourth in this year, under STC Hyderabad, is a stepping stone towards achieving Excel-
lence. Excellence is what we need to develop Hyderabad as the Hub of technical writers. We realize this
and to achieve the quality a hub must represent, we soon will have the Committee on Excellence (COE) in
Writing for IT. The core focus will be to upskill, innovate, and improve communication among the techni-
cal writing community. The initiative will not only help those who crave for knowledge sharing and learn-
ing but will also expand the manpower resource by reaching out to colleges in and around Hyderabad.
Considering that Hyderabad has a huge growth potential in IT, we can foresee high demand for skilled
writers too. The COE will take the Technical Writing, Instructional Designing, and Content Writing fields to
colleges where instead of just being IT engineers, the students can aspire to be Writers in the IT industry
too.
Hyderabad has so much writing talent that we decided to come up with Leap, a magazine to let writers
share new ideas and the creative work they do, the challenges they face, career aspirations they may
have, such as job opportunities outside of India.
There’s life without work, Facebook, and Internet? Really? Send me the link. Yes, besides work, it’s heart-
ening to know that writers also excel in other walks of life. So, folks, our magazine also show-cases your
achievements other than writing. Check it out! What happened to the survey results? You have been
asking…happy to announce that they are here and they show some interesting results.
In the end, let me take the opportunity to thank all those presenters and article writers whom we couldn’t
accommodate. We were blown away by your response, thank you so much! While presenters are most
welcome to next learning sessions, contributors will have their articles published, as promised, in Indus,
the Quarterly Online Magazine of STC India Chapter.
To participate in up¬coming sessions and workshops, be the member of COE, and provide feedback on
the magazine and the Regional Conference, please write to me at punitshrivastava@gmail.com or to
hyderabad@stc-india.org.
Let us together take the Leap and get ready for the next Rendezvous of Writing Community from
Hyderabad!
Punit Shrivastava
STC India Chapter
Hyderabad City Representative (2018)
STC INDIA- HYDERABAD REGIONAL CONFERENCE

Table of Contents
• Latest Trends in Technical Writing -------------------------------------- 2
• Lipid Profile Test for UI Messages ------------------------------------------- 4
• My Journey from Jalandhar to Melbourne---------------------------------- 6
• Lost in Transit ------------------------------------------------------------- 8
• Beyond Technical Writing -------------------------------------------------- 10
• Data Extraction Using Web Scrapping -------------------------------------- 12
• Creating a Winning Proposal ---------------------------------------------- 14
• Confluence Cloud:Pain or Blessing?--------------------------------------- 16
• Sustaining Challenging Times as a Technical Writer ------------------------- 18
• Singapore: My Three Years as a Technical Writer---------------------------- 20
• Result of Survey from Technical Writers at Hyderabad ----------------------- 23
• Content Translation ------------------------------------------------------- 24
• Challenges in the New Era of Agile and DevOps ---------------------------- 27

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Latest Trends in technical writing
Prominent Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “The Only thing that is Constant is Change” – and the Tech-
nical Communications world is no exception. New trends emerge, get adopted, get popular, decline, and
finally, pave way for something new. This article describes technologies that could pave the Road to Da-
mascus, for the Technical communications macrocosm.
Chatbots
A Chatbot is a program designed to assist users. Today,
Chatbots have come of age (an aftermath of their alliance
with Artificial Intelligence (AI)) and are now being used by
companies as a solution mechanism, rather than something
which redirects to a solution provider. Amazon Alexa, Apple
Siri can be considered as voice variants of Chatbots that
interact with users, thus reducing the need to type.
Chatbots in Technical Documentation
Chatbots are infants in the world of technical documen-
tation, with a potential of tremendous growth. Chatbots,
for instance, can replace the traditional search bar to find
required information. Chatbots can land the user directly
on the specific help page, unlike search bars which gener-
ally showcase a list of help topics. Chatbots, when merged
with AI can perform sophisticated tasks like helping users
solve a use case, thus reducing the traffic towards support
teams. SAP is one such organization which has already
started to use Chatbots in its documentation. Amazon is
coming up with a voice-based help system which can be
used by anyone who owns an Alexa powered device.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Furniture giant IKEA has developed an AR-based mobile application, which allows users to view how exactly a
furniture would look, when setup in their house. Without actually placing the furniture at their resi-
dence, the users can now know:
• the amount of space consumed
• how beautiful (or ugly) does the furniture look when placed in house
• which room is best equipped to handle the furniture
Well that’s what AR does. It augments a layer of virtualization on top of real world, thus opening new
horizons for the user to explore. (Virtual Reality (VR) a close counterpart of AR, totally creates a virtually
simulated environment).
AR in Technical Documentation
AR has the power to take documentation into a totally different league. Consider a classic scenario in
which a user reads a document, switches to software, executes the step, and again switches back to the
document to read the next step, to execute the same in software. This requires the user to always pos-
sess the help document and the overhead of having to switch between document and software does
consume a considerable amount of time.
Enter AR, and the situation is totally changed. AR brings to the table the concept of virtual documents
which are generally enclosed in a data goggle. This goggle is AR powered and can show users a live
demo of the next task to be performed. Instead of following traditional methods of writing steps, and
supporting them with an image, GIF or video, AR can instruct the user and showcase a virtual demo
of what the tasks to be performed. So, a step which instructs “Navigate to Administration > Security
Settings” is totally transformed with AR. Here the user can view this step being executed within the
software (virtually through goggles) and then go ahead and perform the same action (in reality).
Currently, Zapworks provides you with a tool which can be used to create AR-based documentation.
BMW is already using AR-based documentation. You can view as to how it works in the vidwo link be-
low.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9KPJlA5yds
PRASHANT MATHAPATI
STC INDIA- HYDERABAD REGIONAL CONFERENCE 2

A Lightbox used on a webpage
Embedding help snippets within UI
Unlike the technologies described above, this section describes the idea of embedding help with UI.
Though not new, the idea is showing a great upward trend among the technical documentation fraterni-
ty, in recent years.
It is cumbersome for a user to always switch to documentation for any query. With embedded help
the user is assisted with snippets of documentation within the user interface (UI). We discuss two such
mechanisms.
Lightbox
A Lightbox is location independent, generally displayed in the
middle of UI screen, is automatically displayed, and does not
require the user to hover or click. Lightbox is generally displayed
on the landing page of a website as a pop-up box and disap-
pears automatically after some time or when a user clicks the
Close. It can also redirect users to a specific location on web
page. You can write up help text for a Lightbox and set up as to
when exactly does the content disappear; a few seconds after
page launch or after the user clicks a button, or when the user is
redirected to a specific page.
Walkthrough Guides
A Walkthrough guide is a series of guides which are mainly designed to assist an onboarding customer.
Walkthrough guides navigate the user through a series of help texts and UIs thus giving the user a first-
hand knowledge of the product. You can decide the sequence in which these guides are displayed to
the user and the content of each guide. Walkthrough guides are generally designed to be displayed only
once, when the user views the web page for the first time. However, the user can manually start the
Walkthrough guide at a later stage, if required.
Pendo and Walkme are two organizations that help create Walkthroughs and Lightboxes.
Conclusion
Companies looking towards technological innovations in documentation today are seriously considering
the use of Chatbots (with and without AI) and AR to become their preferred documentation methods.
While Walkthroughs and Lightbox have always been there, their era of adaptability has just begun, and
their usage graphs will surely show an upwards trend in the near future.
About the Author
Prashant Mathapathi works at Gainsight Software Ltd. as a Technical
Writer. He is an Engineering graduate in Computer Science and holds
an MBA in Systems and Marketing domains. He has over two years of
experience in Technical Writing and has mainly worked on documen-
tation for CRM and computer network security.
PRASHANT MATHAPATI

Lipid Profile Test for UI Messages
Have you ever undergone a lipid-profile test to know the cholesterol levels in your blood? As technical
communicators, we put our documentation through a similar test in the form of reviews. Technical com-
municators review the documentation for technical accuracy, standards, and efficiency. For the latter,
good reviewers trim just the fat, confused reviewers trim both the fat and the meat, ignorant reviewers
trim just the meat and keep the fat, and the apathetic or distracted reviewers keep both. Most of us
extend our reviewing and editing expertise to fine-tune the user interface (UI) text also. In doing so, we
improve the customer experience because users have answers to their questions embedded in the UI.
Additionally, just like with traditional documentation, clear and consistent UI language can improve the
customer experience as they grow comfortable with the UI. The following points summarize the audi-
ence and the purposes of this article:
• Technical communicators: To learn the significance of UI reviews and how they can improve the
messages that appear in the UI.
• UI developers: To learn how UI reviews can help deliver superior customer experience.
To get started, let us glance through some funny messages:
One Step at a Time
BYJU THAMPI
Would you feel proud to be part of a development team that has created those UI messages?
Let us review some points that you should honor when editing UI content.
When writing steps in procedures, we try to
keep one action per step. Similarly, we should
not include multiple scenarios in a single
message. Whenever possible, try to distinguish
the scenarios and provide specific messages.
To illustrate this point, here is a conversation
between a UI developer and a technical com-
municator:
Get to the Point
Be specific whenever possible. Specificity saves
the user from trying out many combinations.
You might have faced this situation when filling
out online forms that warn you about invalid
characters, but the message does not tell you
exactly what went wrong. To illustrate this
point, here is a relevant conversation:

About the Author
Byju Thampi works as a Principal Information Engineer with CA Technolo-
gies, Bengaluru. He has over 16 years of experience in the Software industry.
Along with information engineering, he loves to write lyrics in Malayalam.
BYJU THAMPI
Consistency Breeds Comfort
Try to have consistent and standard
text for your messages. It is impossible
to have predefined messages for all
situations. If you can provide standard
messages or text for generic situations,
that can let all your products commu-
nicate consistently to the users. To
illustrate this point, here is a relevant
conversation:
Common Sense Editing
Always use common sense when edit-
ing. We cannot create handy rules that
cover all the situations. The following
conversation reveals the value a tech-
nical communicator can contribute:
“In an ideal situation, I will try to trim
it.
Do Not Forget the Basics!
Other than these tips, consider the
following points too when editing UI
messages:
• Capitalization
• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Readability and translatability
• Simplicity of language
• Spelling
The role of a technical communication team is vital in providing a supreme customer experience. Re-
member that the content in the UI is as important as how it is designed or coded. In fact, if a well-de-
signed and well-coded software does not communicate well with the user, it fails. So, let us reiterate our
role in providing the ultimate customer experience. Happy editing!
Keep the Meat
If the editor trims the meat and leaves
the fat, the message fails to communicate
to the user. Editing is important, but the
essence of the message is more import-
ant. Editing the message just for the sake
of doing so is not a good idea. Always
respect the purpose of the message. At
the same time, do not provide overdose
of information that is unnecessary to the
situation and to the user. To illustrate this
point, here is a relevant conversation:

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change
anything.” George Bernard Shaw
Since 2015, I have been in Australia and have worked with four different companies on permanent
as well as consulting roles. I believe I am currently in a position to highlight how Australian market is
different from its Indian counterpart.
My Journey from Jalandhar to
Melbourne
HEMANT KAPILA
Moving to Australia
Australia is a developed country with much emphasis on automating the systems to cut costs. Thanks
to one of the highest wage rate, all the government departments, utility companies, and financial or-
ganizations offer user services through web-based portals and smartphone apps.
Being a country with under 25 million people, Australia is a tiny market when it comes to IT product
companies. The IT companies are mainly present in Sydney and Melbourne, the two biggest cities of
Australia. Here are some factors that make Aussie market different:
• The scarcity of big software product companies with a few exceptions like Atlassian. If you are a
technical writer who is only good at producing end-user facing product documents, be ready for
some tough times.
• The abundance of English-speaking Australian technical writers who tend to stick to their perma-
nent positions. An ability to quickly understand the domain, and excellent knowledge manage-
ment skills would be your shield.
• Most of the technical writing opportunities are contractual (6 or 12 months) where the employer
engages writers through their preferred employment agencies.
The road is bumpy until you get your first good opportunity and earn some references as most of the
good companies only prefer hiring people with Australian experience.
Change is not always easy to deal with. One requires mindful decisions, careful planning, and a lot of
efforts to successfully conquer significant changes in life. While I am writing these lines, I’ve already
spent over 20 years in the field of IT industry; a journey in which I started as an instructor at NIIT in
2009, grew to own a computer assembling business, and then worked as a lecturer in a college. A few
more years down the line, I was a published author with over 36 textbooks in my name.
When I moved to the IT industry, the first significant change was to bid farewell to my business, my
small town (Jalandhar), and loved ones for a better future as an information engineer in a bigger city
(Nagpur) in 2007. Since then, it has been a never-ending journey filled with many courageous deci-
sions, mistakes, and learnings leading to constant changes. Over the next eight years, I worked with
MNCs such as Symbian, CA Technologies, and Oracle on various roles in India. I also took up opportu-
nities to work in cities like London and Seattle, to get a better understanding of the developed world.
Developed and Digitized Market
Smaller and Competitive Market

HEMANT KAPILA
Most of the technical writing opportunities are generated by major system upgrade projects. As most
of these projects last between one to two years, no one hires permanent resources. The good news is
that such projects are always happening and contractual opportunities are always in plenty.
Contractor-Driven Market
With Sydney and Melbourne usually getting a place on the list of most expensive cities, it is hard to
do well when only income fuels your family expenditure. To enable you to cope with this, the wages
are also higher than in Canada and US. The salary range for a technical writer varies between 65-90K
based on the skills and experience, which is very decent. I would insist not to bring the family until
you have secured a job for yourself. It is worth mentioning that school session starts in January and a
child must be over six to enter in grade one. The kinder and daycare costs are among the highest in
the world. Be prepared for the same, if you decide to bring your family while you are on a work visa.
High Cost of Living
About the Author
Hemant Kapila is a passionate writer with a zeal to understand com-
plex systems and architectures. During the past 16 years, he has worked
with Startups as well as industry giants on a variety of technical writ-
ing and analyst roles. He lives in Melbourne working with Metro Trains
Melbourne as a Sr. Analyst and Technical Writer. When not glued to his
computer, you can find him in the kitchen cooking a variety of cuisines
or in the workshop building furniture or other home renovation stuff.
For a versatile writer, it would be easy to get 6 or 12 months contract opportunity anytime between
April to October, before the Christmas holiday period starts.
The risk of working as a contractor is worth taking as you would usually earn 30%-40% higher than the
equivalent permanent roles. An experienced writer with a broad skill set can easily get $500-$800 a
day as a contractor but cannot avail paid holidays or sick days. Most of the defense and federal work
is restricted to permanent residents or citizen that have security clearance. Getting the security clear-
ance is difficult as you employer applies and gets this on your behalf.
After getting PR, updating the LinkedIn profile should be the priority as over 60 percent of resourc-
es are hired through LinkedIn. Send a customized invite to recruiters, informing them with your
availability and visa status. Nothing beats landing here with a job in hand. ‘Seek’ is the next helpful
resource when it comes to technical hiring. I would suggest crafting a cover letter matching the job
description when you apply for any role.
How Does One Start?
If you are a technical writer who can quickly understand enterprise systems and their moving parts,
the future would be surely bright here. The writers with business analysis and system analysis skills
are highly desired. You should be happy to work in any available domain such as manufacturing, min-
ing or rail. Many projects need writers with an ability to create and manage knowledge management
frameworks using tools like Confluence. Don’t be rigid about the tools and technologies (like DITA) as
MS Word and MS Excel are still the mostly used tools here, even in 2018.
Which Skills Should One Have?

Lost in Transit
My friend’s boyfriend has disappeared on her. I ruled
out kidnapping for ransom, coz he is reasonably active
on WhatsApp and his phone works. So, he is around,
just not for her.
In our profession, we are taught early that ‘the mean-
ing of our communication is the response it gets’. So,
what was my friend communicating all these days that
finally pushed the guy away? Or, was it that her com-
munication was getting lost in transit, like kids misun-
derstanding their mother’s worry as suffocating inves-
tigative shadowing?
RITU SACHDEVA
Which brings one to ask, on whose shoulder does the responsibility of effective communication rest? Is
it the communicator alone, or can we nail the receiver with a similarly strong saying, “we see what we
want to see”?
A person can interpret a behavior in multiple ways depending on the frame of mind with which they ap-
proach it. If approached from a position of Trust (or mistrust) in the other person, for example, it evokes
a very different response than if we approach it from a position of self-doubt. It may further vary if we are
driven by Emotional Insecurity or Insincerity, or, better still, Emotional Intelligence and Strength. And not
to forget, our dear positions of Ego and Surrender. Interpretation is probably parked under the Effective
Listening umbrella, but I feel it deserves its own space in defining effective communication.
The position we approach a matter from may partially be attributed to our past experiences; we repeat
behaviors that worked for us and avoid those that led us to trouble or rejection. The remaining part may
be attributed to “what we want to see”. If I apply this theory to my friend, based on how either of them
approached the relationship, so many possible approaches emerge that could have led to the crisis she
now faces:
• He was not very committed to the relationship. But, she failed to realize this and hence, is now sur-
prised at the development. Blind Trust, Ego, Emotional Intelligence failure.
• She realized his lack of commitment but tried to cling on. Self-Doubt, Emotional Insecurity or Emo-
tional Intelligence failure.
• He disliked some things about her or their relationship but did not bring these up. Doubt, Emotional
Insecurity, and lack of emotional strength.
• She trusted her power of love and believed he will always stay. Trust or Ego.
• He perceived her as fickle and distanced himself from possible hurt. Doubt.
• He fell out of the romance but was not able to communicate with her. Emotional insecurity.
• He took her for granted … And many more such possibilities.
The action is the same – disappearance of the boyfriend. Causes building up to it can be many. Timely
and frank communication, feedback as we call it in corporate jargon, might have given a much happier
and predictable conclusion to the relationship.
Same thing I saw recently in the movie Focus, where Nicky (Will Smith) thinks Jess (Margot Robbie) has
ditched him because it is 10 min over the decided meeting time, and starts to leave from his room with
all the money, only to find her at the door. Being a conman, he approached her absence from a position
of mistrust.
Map this to professional situations. An oddly worded email from the manager, a trusted colleague not
entertaining our request for help, or a much-anticipated hike or promotion not coming our way…In fact,
any unanticipated event is either an outcome of a wrong position we adopted somewhere along the
way or signs we missed seeing. It is equally an opportunity for correcting our course and reviewing our
position.

About the Author
Ritu Sachdeva is a technical communicator by profession and by passion.
After 24 years of writing and leading documentation teams at organiza-
tions such as TCS, Oracle, and CLS, Ritu now works as a Freelancer tech-
nical writer and editor. She is also pursuing theatre and wants to work on
socially relevant projects.
Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachdevaritu/
RITU SACHDEVA
The signs are always there. Our mind reads them. Our intuition, our gut feeling, our emotional in-
telligence guides us to communicate more or less, or if something seems amiss. But sometimes our
assumptions override these signs. Of course, in hindsight, they are beacons of realization! It is human
nature to approach anything initially from a position of trust. But, subsequently, we should objective-
ly see what is really out there, and not what fits within our comfort zone. Only when we interpret
correctly can we communicate effectively – talk, listen, review your approach position, and regularly
course correct.

Debjit makes lives of many Oracle users easier
by writing some fantastic technical documen-
tation on an average workday. When not work-
ing, you can find Debjit involved in tons of other
activities. Debjit is an avid marathon runner
and has many half-marathons to his credit. His
ultimate dream is to run the Boston marathon.
Training kids is one of his many passions. Debjit
regularly works with Hyderabad Runners to train
kids to become future marathoners and foot-
ballers. If he is not doing his sporty stuff, you can
always catch up with Debjit in fun filled conver-
sations on food, music, or rather any topic under
the sun!
SEGUE
Naini Khajanchi is a technical writer at Oracle,
a trekker, and an animal lover. In my leisure
time, I write haiku—a short 17 syllable Japa-
nese style of poetry. Here’s one:
The travel bug bites
And the disease takes over;
I succumb gladly.
I’m also an avid footballer and happen to be
the only girl in my company’s football team.
This raises a few eyebrows but that just drives
me to play more. So here I am—an outdoor
person with a career in an indoor arena. While
my job is an integral part of who I am, I am
more, much more!
Website: https://nainikhajanchi.wordpress.com
Tejasvini works as a Senior Technical
Writer with Ensoftek Solutions. Her pas-
sion to Wushu, a form of Chinese Mar-
tial Arts, She has helped her win Silver
and Bronze Medals in Wushu National
Tournaments for Telangana State.
With solo Travel and Adventure activ-
ities being her other passions, she has
hosted more than 50 treks as Assistant
Organiser in GHAC.
Her Motto: Live life to the fullest and
never give up no matter what!.
Segue

It’s FIFA season and this is the best time for Dh-
ruv Pokhrel, who works as Technical writer. He
loves playing and discussing football. He is a
regular in Corporate Football tournaments. He
doesn’t favor any specific footbal team as he
believes the game is way beyond any team.
Food is another topic that’s close to his heart
but he would rather eat than discuss food.
Suhas Murthy, working as Technical Writer,
represented multiple companies in Corporate
Chess tournaments. He finished Runners up in
individual category at HYDERABAD Corporate
Olympics and also won the team championship
at HYSEA.
Nikhil Sulluru is a documentation lead for a
personal finance management software
start-up. Nikhil is a nature and environment
lover. He along with a couple of friends
have founded an NGO called GLARE Foun-
dation that works for saving and restoring
lakes in Hyderabad. You can find him ac-
tively involved in many GLARE community
initiatives happening over weekends. In ad-
dition, he is passionate about trekking in the
Himalayas and completed a good number
of treks over the last few years.
Amol Redij is a technical writer who has published poems and been part
of three award winning short films as an Assistant Script Writer. While now
being a self-employed professional in content designing, most of his expe-
rience of 15 years has been into technical writing where he worked with
organizations like Wipro, Sunguard, and BMC Software. Creative content
designing alongside videography is his forte.
Published poet of 2 collections of English poetry:
• Silent Moments of Melancholy
• 69: The Otherwise Poetry
His poems have also been published in magazines of international repute:
• Info-Canadian Anthology - The Dance of the Peacock
• Galaxy Multidisciplinary Research Journal
• The Brooklyn Voice
With Storytelling and film making being his passion, his award-winning
contribution were in 3 short films
• Ardhaviram (Asst Director & Production Manager) - Best Film @ PCMC
film festival; Official screening @ Pune Short Film Fest.
• Return Gift (Asst Director & Executive Producer) - Best Story @ Goa
Film Festival; Official screening at Vancouver Film Festival.
• Dhuaa (Producer & Dialog Writer) - Official screening @ Nasik Film
Festival.
For more information on him, see
• http://www.amolr.in/
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amol_Redij
SEGUE

Data Extraction Using Web Scraping
Manual, strenuous, time consuming–don’t like these sound? Imagine having to manually mine a plethora
of content in guides on your content platform. Wouldn’t you wish that someone could do that for you?
Are You Wondering What Web Scraping is?
ISHAAN AGARWAL
Well, here comes a genie called Web Scraping to your rescue. Whip up a script in Python, guide the script
to an HTML page and let the magic happen. And there you have it - output in minutes, if not seconds.
In simple words, it is a process of extracting data programmatically from web pages.
Think of this as a harvester that looks through content, harvests, and saves the output as required.
You are at liberty to choose how you would like to process this data – use it raw, or process it for com-
plex tasks like statistical analysis.
Let me explain one of the projects where I used this technique and saved time with excellent results.
Our goal was to identify inconsistent content (published or un-published) in Configuration Guides and
Command Reference Guides. We had several guides of over 700+ pages each to process. Traditionally,
one has to spend hours for this process – manually extract data, compare, and identify. This time con-
suming extraction process needed a simpler automated way to accomplish the task at hand.
I wrote a script in Python with the aid of a package, BeautifulSoup, which is a library for pulling data
out of HTML and XML files. This script was developed using the logic graphically shown below.
Based on this logic, I first analyzed and mapped
HTML tags to their DITA counterparts to identify
the tags within which the target data is encap-
sulated.
Commands in DITA, in most cases, are enclosed
in the <synph> (syntax phrase) tag. It acts as a
container for syntax definition elements and is
particularly useful when you need to use ele-
ments like <kwd>, <var>, <delim>, <sep> within
the same context.
Here’s an example of how these DITA XML tags
map to their HTML counterparts.
Source XML
• <synph> <kwd> clear configuration lock </
kwd> </synph>
• <synph> <kwd> clear </kwd> <kwd>
configuration </kwd> <kwd> lock </kwd>
</synph>
HTML Output
• -
clear configuration lock 
• -
clear configu-
ration lock

ISHAAN AGARWAL
Here is an example of how a rendition engine converts DITA XML tags to their equivalent HTML tags
and create an output for a browser to understand.
About the Author
Ishaan Agrawal has been into Technical Writing since 2015 and is
currently working for Cisco Systems, Bangalore. He holds a Master’s
degree in Computer Science and writing has always been his inter-
est. He is keen on pursuing his new-found love of automating not so
productive documentation tasks.
The script first validates a book URL, scans for content enclosed within <synph> tags, and extracts it to a
text file. This saved data can be further processed as required. Compared to hours of repetitive manual
work with imperfect results, this script gave us the desired output within two minutes with accuracy.
Now you calculate the time and effort saved in processing 16 such books. This genie came in pretty handy
for us but yes, it needs to be taught. And you need to know how to teach this genie. In simple terms, you
need to learn to write code.
There are many small, yet complex processes in documentation that can benefit from automation. This
is an uncharted territory, calling out to us, explorers.

Creating a Winning Proposal
Digitalisation and automation rule the universe today. With the advent of computer, internet, mobile
phone, and social media, the world has evolved much faster than we could have ever imagined. Tech-
nology has made the impossible possible, such as robots performing critical surgeries and the internet
connecting people from every nook and corner of the world.
Information Technology (IT) is performing a significant role in transforming organisations into digital
spaces. The transformation is happening across various functions such as Human Resource (HR), Infra-
structure Management, and Documentation.
The scenario of technical writing has changed. It seems to be already in a new mode with various latest
tools and techniques to embrace automation. The latest trends indicate hyper-specialisation for new
areas such as chatbots, voice interactions, and agile podcast. However, a trend seems to continue with
cross-functional, interdisciplinary roles to play in a couple of significant functions in the IT industry such
as Proposal Writing.
Although the leaders of IT industry are trying their best to automate proposal creation activity, it is still
a big challenge in terms of ensuring appropriateness of content while maintaining uniqueness of the
proposal. Basically, in my view, every proposal is unique similar to a thesis or a dissertation that requires
a lot of research efforts. Every deal or bid comes with an exclusive flavour and hence proposal writing
is like a handcrafted artwork, which can be automated only partially. It needs well-applied cognitive in-
telligence and content strategy to create a winning proposal, and the role of a technical writer becomes
crucial here.
Before discussing how to create effective, winning proposals, it is important to understand what a pro-
posal is. A proposal is basically a document that offers a solution to a problem or a need. It is written in a
persuasive way to convince its target audience/s to buy the solution; it describes the capabilities and ex-
periences of the proposer. In IT, proposal writing is a vital function as it is all about winning new business
by involving Sales, Presales and Delivery teams to collaborate in designing and creating the proposal.
As a cross-functional requirement, proposal writing is no more limited to technical writers for checking
the language and grammar at the final stage. Instead, it is expected to be a part of entire proposal cre-
ation activity from the beginning when a request arrives, to understand the client’s requirements – both
told and untold requirements, to evaluate criteria, format of the proposal and what needs to go in it.
Working in a multi-stakeholder environment brings in few challenges such as maintaining consistency
of language and style and flow of the story. Here, a technical writer can play a critical role by creating
relevant assets such as templates and guidelines along with the storyboard to be followed for writing the
proposal. Storyboarding helps a writer in strategizing the content.
A technical writer can play multiple roles in the entire activity such as a thorough research about the
client, its industry and its region can help a writer in carving out a framework for the proposal document.
Making a list of the points related to the objectives of the client, its long-term goals, its position in the
market, what is happening in its industry and its region can help all stakeholders in effective storyboard-
ing for the proposal. The researcher should keep asking questions to himself/herself such as why and
what are the main concerns of the client? Who is the decision maker? What could be the best solution?
This helps in arriving with strong facts and innovative ideas for solution. Also, thinking from the client’s
perspective and thorough research help in getting ‘Eureka’ points for proposals.
Then, structuring the points is another important activity that helps in creating the right table of contents
for the proposal document. Free flowing or client-provided, chapter/section based, or question-and-an-
swer based, the proposal needs to be well-structured and crisp in terms of appropriateness of content.
Writers can take a cue from their notes, decide the theme of the proposal, topics and sub-topics to be
covered along with their flow. This helps in arriving at a table of contents to be followed by all stakehold-
ers.
ANSHU JOSHI

About the Author
Dr. Anshu Joshi, having doctorate from JNU in International Relations, is
presently working with Europe, Middle East and Africa Presales group of
Tech Mahindra as Lead-Technical/Business Communication. She is an avid
reader and a writer with over 40 research and popular articles published
in various research journals, magazines and websites. Her book JNU mein
ek ladki rahti thi was launched in June 2017, and is doing well. She has
recently been felicitated by Gujarat government for her book. Apart from
her passion for reading and writing, Anshu is a trained Kathak dancer and
loves to attend cultural events. Apart from an overall 5+ years of experi-
ence in IT industry, she also an additional six years of experience with All
India Radio, New Delhi as a presenter and script writer.
ANSHU JOSHI
Once the topics are filled with appropriate content, it becomes important to check if the content is
accurate, crisp and compliant to the RFI/RFP. Here, technical writers can check the content by apply-
ing the principle of five Ws and one H (What, Who, Why, When, Where, and How) on every topic or
question. For example, they can check if the provided answer responses to the question accurately or
not. Or, if the content maintains a well-structured and planned flow or not. At this stage, they can also
restructure the content along with the language to bring in consistency in terms of style of writing and
completeness of the topic.
A proposal also needs to look clutter-free and compliant in terms of the documentation policy of an
organisation. Here too, a technical writer can bring in value-add by ensuring that the document looks
good while it reads germane to the RFI/RFP.
As already mentioned, a proposal is like a handcrafted artwork. The more meticulous and strategized
efforts go into it, the more saleability it brings in. Here, technical writers can add a lot of value through
thinking and applying efficient content strategy.
Books Written by Indian Technical Writers
• Ranga Halfpants by Suman Kumar
• Tipu Sultan, the Tyrant of Mysore by Sandeep Balakrishna
• Aavarana: The Veil, an English translation of S L Bhyrappa’s Kannada novel by
Sandeep Balakrishna
• Sepia Leaves, by Amandeep Sandhu
• Roll of Honour by Amandeep Sandhu
• Panipuri and the Passive Voice by Manjula Kandula
• The Garden of Solitude by Siddhartha Gigoo
• A Fistful of Earth by Siddhartha Gigoo
• The Write Stride by Suyog Ketkar
• Vedic Gods, Part 1 by Anindita Basu
• What-If tales from Mahabharat by Anindita Basu
• JNU Mein Ek Ladki Rahti thi by Dr. Anshu Joshi
• UX Essentials for Technical Writers ebooks pack by Sudhir Subudhi

Confluence Cloud: Pain or Blessing?
Confluence Cloud, aka Confluence Wiki, is the cloud-based version of the document management tool,
Confluence, by Atlassian. You can use this tool to create, publish, and manage documents online. Conflu-
ence Self-hosted is another version of Confluence. I haven’t used that version yet and what I am saying
here is purely based on my experience using Confluence Cloud; I am not sure if Confluence Self-hosted is
the same or adds to the Cloud version’s functionality.
Pros
IQBAL SYED
I have been using Confluence Cloud for the previous eight months and have developed a love-hate re-
lationship with it. It is much like any other documentation tool offering the variety of content editing,
formatting, and such. However, it has a unique advantage over other documentation tools: the ability to
link seamlessly with Jira (the ticketing tool) and to publish documents for your audience in a single-click.
Microsoft Word and Google Docs are the only other authoring tools I have used. So pretty much every-
thing I say here is based on my experience using those tools and an unconscious comparison.
• Effective collaboration! You can collaborate with multiple authors on the same document and
live-edit together. This feature helped me working in collaboration with other writers and deliver-
ing documents under supremely tight deadline.
• Effective version management! You can control which version your readers can see, compare
different versions. This is particularly helpful when a writer has made several minor changes in the
document and you are tasked to migrate those changes to another site.
• Single-click publish! Soon as you hit that Publish button your document is live for the entire world!
No more packaging and e-mailing woes.
• Control visibility. You have total control over your document’s visibility. You can restrict view only
to you or to a couple of other people.
• Labels. You can attach labels to your documents and that lets you index them more efficiently, for
example label all “How to...” articles as howto and then call them all in an FAQ section using only
the label!
• Templates! If you are someone like me who loves using templates to give your documents a
unique structure, then you are going to love Confluence! I have created templates for each type
of document I create. So, whenever I am creating a new document, I can select the template on
which to base my document and start. Editing and managing templates is also very easy; you can
add instructional text to different sections in the template to give the other authors a clear-cut
idea of what is to be entered in a section.
• Pre-built macros. You have numerous macros at your disposal, each macro fulfilling a unique
objective. Use the Warning macro to include a warning in a text-box, the Expand macro to include
some additional content in an expandable section, the Excerpt and the Excerpt include macros to
single source a content. To show a Python code block, use a code macro and set the language to
Python to retain its colour scheme.
• Shortcuts to success! Confluence has many nifty shortcuts to make you more productive. Over
time you will stop using the UI and just unleash the Technical Writer in you by using shortcuts:
right from formatting the headings to inserting macros.

About the Author
A Technical Writer by chance, Iqbal Syed has been working as a Technical
Writer for over 10 years now. Currently, he is a Senior Technical Writer at
Gaian Solutions. Iqbal started my career with Satyam Computer Services
Ltd (now Mahindra Satyam) and had the opportunity to work with few
global leaders such as Emirates Group and CSC. His tryst with writing be-
gan when he was a school kid. Little did he know that he will end up pur-
suing this as a full-time career. He is a geek and loves learning new tech-
nologies and writing about them. Finding ways to automate and optimize
processes. In other words, feeding his laziness is what he loves to do the
most! In his free time Iqbal can be found gaming on his laptop or reading.
IQBAL SYED
Cons
• Content migration woes! If, like me, you maintain two sites for storing your documents, then Con-
fluence Cloud is an absolute nightmare. There is no automation process available for migrating con-
tent between sites. Short of copy-pasting like a Neanderthal, there is little else that can be done. If
your documents consist of just text, you can export it as a Word file and then import it to the other
site (but then again, if it was only text you could just copy-paste, couldn’t you?!)
• Code macro! As I said earlier, there is the Code macro for inserting code blocks in your page. If your
code is wider than the page, Code macro does not wrap text and just stretches your page wide,
giving it the much-hated horizontal scroll.
Pro-tip: Use the Better Code macro instead, it does pretty much everything that the Code Block
macro does with the exception it adds a horizontal scroll to the macro and your page is lovely and
beautiful as always.
• Table horror! If you are familiar with MS Word, you know how convenient it is to create and format
tables: adjust column widths to make all columns have the same width, copy table contents, and a
million other such useful options. Welcome now to the hell that is Confluence Cloud. You will have
to adjust column widths manually, forget being able to size rows, copying content from one table to
the other works if both are of the same default style. I am not sure why but the same table appears
differently in different Operating Systems: in a Linux machine a leading column or row might appear
to have a grey background (default scheme) whereas as in a Windows machine the same would
appear to have a white background!
• Spell-check does not work. For some reason, the default spell-check does not work all the time so
you have to be very careful to avoid typos and potential embarrassment later on. Perhaps it is to do
with the browser (I use Google Chrome).
With all of the above points in mind, I wouldn’t say that Confluence Cloud is completely useless. Sure, it
has its shortcomings but with a little patience and a few easy workarounds you can make it work to your
advantage. Go ahead and give it a go!
Terminology Management
Detecting inconsistent or outdated terminology that can help users understand better and help Com-
pany gain respect is generally referred as Terminology Management. It includes simplified English as
well as consistent naming of products and components, especially for any third-party products. Internal
project teams may have their own terms that can be completely different from what customers under-
stand. The writers here play the crucial role of conveying the right terms to customers making them un-
derstand references of a company better by detecting wrong terminology before the document is made
available to customers.
Recommended Tools:
https://hackernoon.com/lint-lint-and-away-linters-for-the-english-language-70f4b22cc73c
https://ux.shopify.com/rorybot-automated-content-style-checking-4d42946ae318

Sustaining Challenging Times as a
Technical Writer
SRIKANTH PARTHASARATHY
The need to come up with new ideas and innovation has always been a challenge for technical writers.
While the industry pattern or ongoing business needs may not support long time projects, there are
several ways by which a writer can explore new ideas within a limited scope. Job change is a straight
option, however, in gloomy market scenarios with less opportunities, the following methods can be
implemented:
Internal engagement: Being engaged is better than being idle. Many organizations have a lot of inter-
nal projects, tools, and processes, for which, they don’t have adequate or proper documentation. Writ-
ers can volunteer themselves to study the scenarios, create use cases, and use their technical writing
skills to help learn the processes and tools.
Reconciliation of errors: In busy times, you don’t have sufficient time to build a solid framework that
can minimize issues related to documentation. In slack times, writers can conduct a thorough study
and invest time for automation of tools to reduce manual intervention and increase efficiency.
Closer to customers: Nothing makes it easy to understand products than having live demonstrations or
live roadshows. Although developers develop the product, writers bring life through documentation.
In similar modes, simpler communication methods like demo videos and webinars can be prepared by
writers, allowing customers to easily understand the product apart from printed documentation.
Localization: When your documentation is also in a native language, you can attract a larger customer
base to use your product. Since most of the companies do not effectively spend time and investment
to localize but rely solely on innovation, it is a challenge for marketing teams. Instead writers with good
translation skills can help localize the product documentation and utilize the time during slack periods.
Interactive documentation: When your documentation becomes a two-way communication, it un-
earths all the possible doubts in a user. This can be in the form of question and answers or interactive
videos, where roles of user and demonstrator are played.
Writers as trainers: As technical writers have good written communication skills, writers can voluntari-
ly approach the development teams and conduct training sessions to improve written communication
skills of developers.
While the above points are not limited, there are many other ways a writer or tech writing team can
engage themselves during challenges or slack period to survive.
Here is an example that shows the difference between a conventional team setup and strategic team
approach.
Conventional team setup
In a conventional team setup of 10 members, during slack times, the productivity and resource utiliza-
tion is only 20%, while the remaining 80% remain on bench.

SRIKANTH PARTHASARATHY
About the Author
Srikanth Parthasarathy has 11 years of experience in Technical Writ-
ing and currently working as a Staff Technical Writer with Qualcomm,
Hyderabad. He has documentation experience in Semiconductors, Net-
works, ERP, and Hospitality management segments. He has presented
papers at the STC main conference in 2011 and 2016. During his free
time, he loves traveling.
Strategic team setup
In a strategic team setup of 10 members, during slack times, the productivity and resource utilization
increases to 60%. This means that 2 resources can contribute to 20% active utilization, which the
remaining 8 resources can contribute to half of 80% active utilization (that is, 40%), while aligning to
allied projects. This shows that there is 40% increase in productivity and revenue generation as com-
pared to convention setup.
Popular Books for TWs to Read
• The User Manual by Michael Bremer
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White
• Developing Quality Technical Information by IBM Press
• The Insider’s Guide to Technical Writing by Krista Van Laan
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
• Managing Writers: A Real World Guide to Managing Technical Documentation by Richard L. Hamilton
• Technical Writing 101: A Real World Guide to Planning and Writing Technical Documentation by Alan
Pringle and Sarah O’Keefe
• Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation by Anne Gentle
• Audience, Relevance and Search: Targeting Web Audiences with Relevant Content by James Matthew-
son and others
• Technical Writing for Dummies by Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts
• Rapid Instructional Design, 2nd edition by George M. Piskurich
Also, you can follow this page to remain updated about various other publications: https://www.stc.org/
publications/

The most precious time in my 16-year career in technical communications was those 3 years that I
had spent as a Staff/Principal Technical Writer at SAP Asia Pte, Ltd in Singapore.
When opportunity knocked at my door in 2012, I did think twice
and contacted a few expats to understand life in Singapore and
then took the plunge into an international experience. As an
Indian, I took a couple of days to get accustomed to the rhythm
of the Singaporean work style.
Singapore’s product-based companies value the importance of technical documentation. Singapore’s
government encourages hiring citizens in the technical writing teams. However, due to less technical
know-how, Indian and other foreign writers are preferred. The unique hiring policies by Singapore
government makes it mandatory to post all opportunities for citizens first before inviting applications
from expatriates.
Singapore: My Three Years as a
Technical Writer
HARRY ANTHONY
Technical Writing Requirements at Singapore
The documentation process and tools used there adhere to strict guidelines of the documentation
development life cycle (DDLC) to comply with strict policies, including planning, designing, develop-
ing, reviewing, and maintaining both actual and adhoc versions of documentation.
Additionally, if not trained in specific documentation tools, you are required to secure training at
one of the authentic centres. For example, if you don’t know DITA, you must get trained in DITA in
a reputed training centre. You can also take the initiative to use internal training resources to attain
full expertise and independence in the use of the specific tools.
Singapore’s technical writing teams consist of writers from various countries, ethnicities, and back-
grounds. There are some inevitable communication gaps because each person has an individual
working style that may be related to his or her cultural experience. SAP Asia Pte, Ltd had writers from
Singapore, Philippines, India, UK, and the U.S.A.
The Singaporean culture is rich and harmonious. The people of Singapore focus on maintaining racial
and religious harmony among all its citizens. Singapore boasts about its racial diversity. With one out
of every four people being an Indian, it is no surprise that many companies there are full of Indian
software engineers.
Adapting a New Culture
Punctuality is the key in Singapore’s workforce. If you are late for any meeting three times in a row,
you will not be considered an ethical employee. People leave their work stations at 5 p.m. sharp in
order to catch their bus or train back home.
Singapore’s people are very apologetic for what they feel might upset another person. You will also
be amused with the native slang and two magical words that sum up how they deal with others. The
first word “CAN LA” means you can or we can do it. The other slang word is CANNOT LA which speaks
for itself because it is something that will never be done.
A New Beginning

Singapore is a safe haven for you if you are smart and active. My final recommendation is that you
should be prepared. Do your research. It’s well worth it.
HARRY ANTHONY
On a personal front, the salary you earn in Singapore must be
carefully spent because Indian food is very expensive there
as compared to local food. Half of your salary will vanish in
the form of house rent, school fees, electricity, transporta-
tion, and groceries. That’s why every cent counts and it mat-
ters to be smart by being frugal!
Every Cent Matters
References
• https://www.jobstreet.com.sg/
• https://www.guidemesingapore.com/business-guides/immigration/get-to-know-singapore/cost-of-liv-
ing-in-singapore
• https://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/overseasmission/new_delhi/visa_information/overview.html
The learning curve in Singapore has its own trade-offs in the form of less social life on a no-man’s is-
land. On other side, you get to explore a new culture, new cuisines, and various languages. You need
to work hard to keep up with the busy Singapore lifestyle by participating in various activities that
will help you get acquainted with the local population. Singapore will help you become stronger and
more active. The best example of this would be their senior citizens’ approaches to active ageing.
They participate in marathons, tap dance, physical workouts, and various other activities that are
planned by the Government. The retirement age in Singapore is 70 unlike in India which is 60.
Key Lessons Learnt/Key Take Away
To know how it feels to land and walk through a new world away from home, read my blog:
http://harryrayban.blogspot.com/2012/07/new-approach-to-life-at-singapore_07.html
• Do follow e-mail etiquettes and be formal in your email conversations.
• Be on time for telephonic discussion, skype call and face-to-face interviews.
• Do not address residents with a simple “Hi” unless you are very close to them. Instead,
you must add a proper salutation. For example, use their name with a salutation such as
“Dear Harry”.
• Never negotiate or bargain with locals on the price of a product.
• Don’t forget to wear your sports shoes when you go to the gym.
• Never argue with locals at meetings, bus bay, food courts, or any other public places.
• Become a part of local community clubs and participate in their social activities.
Some Useful Tips
About the Author
Harry Anthony is a Principal Technical Writer and Information Archi-
tect at InsideView Technologies, Hyderabad in the sales intelligence
team. With over 16 years of experience in technical writing, he is a
certified Information architect and project management profession-
al. He also writes technical writing blogs, travelogues, and mentors
junior writers.
Did You Know!
Learning Foreign Language enhances Job Opportunity.
One of the Indian companies advertised about German Technical Writer.

Survey Results
STC India - Hyderabad Team conducted a survey on topics related to technical writers. Almost 200+
members participated and responded to multiple questions. Here is the graphical representation of all
the responses.

Content Translation
A delighted customer ensures soaring business. This is true for every business including information
technology. There is nothing as savoring as receiving information in your native language. If your product
users can read online help in their own language, it will definitely add value to their satisfaction, which in
return will soar your business to the top.
Globalization of business has brought every nation under one umbrella. Product usage has gone beyond
the boundaries and so has its documentation. Content translation is an amazing concept of delivering
the same content to the users in their native languages. This is why involving in the process of content
translation is a wonderful experience, fun, and of course, it adds a valuable share in your skills! What
emerged as a necessity of business fast became an interesting balance of tasks that involve research,
analysis, firefighting, and publishing.
Let’s Look into the Process
An elaborate process that blends with Document Development Life Cycle ensures that the content in
native languages reaches users, and enriches the user experience. The following process flow explains
typical translation phases:
1. Identifying content for translation
2. Identifying a firm that provides translation services
3. Estimating content volume
4. Developing and reviewing English content
5. Packaging and submitting content for translation
6. Testing and publishing translated content
Identify the Languages for Your Content Translation.
With the global audience getting closer with technology, the use of applications is never the same across
the globe. While some users do not mind reading documents in English, others prefer translated docu-
ments. To cater to the ever-evolving demands of the users, as technical writers, you must research vari-
ous combinations of languages for the content that needs to be translated. You can approach sales team
for the data.
What Do You Need to Plan Translation?
Content volume? Yes!
It is a good idea to come up with content volume in the form of approximate number of words or number
of topics. Translators might expect number of word to be translated, so that they can plan their transla-
tion efforts and set budget. Hence, before deciding to translate content, you must be aware of the mon-
etary effects it will have on your project’s budget.
When estimating the time and budget, you must consider the following items:
• Approximate number of words and topics
• Time required for packaging and delivering the content
• Time required for accepting the translated content, integrating them with English content or product,
and testing translated content
Coordinate with your stakeholders to discover the agencies for translation services. Share and finalize
your plan with a translation coordinator, and then communicate the same to the translators.
Write Your Content in English for a Global Reader.
In Agile development methodology, you create content per sprint. During content creation, stick to a par-
ticular style and word usage so that the content is easy to translate. It is easier to translate the content
that is written using structured authoring, such as DITA as it provides standard topic types.
Do not miss to get the content reviewed from the stakeholders in the same sprint. Technical and editorial
reviews always reduce the chances of requesting an extra set of translation package.
AMBARISH MARODKAR

About the Author
After completing master’s in Physics and having 10 years of experience
as a technical writer, Ambarish Marodkar now enjoys creating documen-
tation formats that enhance user experience. When not writing product
documents or creating instructional videos, he likes reading about trend-
ing technologies and for sure – traveling!
AMBARISH MARODKAR
Schedule, Package, and Submit Content.
Scheduling and packaging translation completely depends on your release duration. Consider you have
a release scheduled of three months, then schedule and package the translation accordingly. For exam-
ple, you can schedule multiple phases to send English content for translation. Consider the number of
words or topics per phase. The following table can help you understand the schedule:
Topics or topic groups Number of words or
topics
Dates Date you received the
translated content
Overview and what’s
new
2000 | 2 topics <date> <date>
Installation and config-
uration
5000 | 8 topics <date> <date>
You can use your own convenient way of sending content to translators. We normally share those from
a central repository. To avoid last minute rush; we provide the translators with the access to the ready-
to-accept content and send back the translated content.
Resolve Queries from Translators.
After you send the content to the translators, it never happens that the translators don’t have any
questions! Hence keep a communication system ready, where translators can post their questions, and
you can answer them. Don’t mind! Most of the questions are specific to sentence rephrasing and word
usage. Believe me, answering questions is a wonderful experience.
It’s Time for a Comprehensive Review.
After you receive the translated content, integrate that with English content or the product. Once inte-
grated, pre-publish your documents, and send them to the translators. The translators then verify that
the translated content is correctly integrated, and is easy to navigate.
Cool! You are good to publish your product documentation for the native users.
The World is Huge and So the Challenges. Don’t You Think So?
Can you think of an instance — in the working environment — where you have not faced any challeng-
es? Such instances are rare. No?
Certainly, challenges give you an experience to learn something new, retrospect, and use as a solution,
in case, there are any problems.
A few challenges that you might come across:
• Estimating number of words
• Writing style and word usage
• Tight schedules toward the end of the release to accommodate last minute updates
• Delivering documentation fixes after translated content is tested
I hope this information helps you to understand the efforts and strategies involved in translating your
product content, and the challenges that you might face!

Innovapptive was founded in 2012 by former
IBM senior management executives Sundeep V.
Ravande (Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder)
and Hari Kamineni (Chief Product Officer &
Co-Founder). Prior to co-founding Innovapptive,
Sundeep and Hari delivered best in class
business transformation solutions for over 15+
years to Fortune 500 customers .
The Co-Founders of Innovapptive were inundated
with requests from their IBM clientele to help
simplify their mobile workforce management
needs across enterprise asset management
(EAM), supply chain, and field services. Customers
were looking to eliminate paper-based processes
to improve technician wrench time, improve
workforce capacity, improve inventory accuracy,
reduce inventory carrying costs, optimize MRO on
balance sheet, reduce shrinkage, and much more.
In a pursuit to solve these business problems for
enterprises with best-in-class mobile workforce
management solutions, the Co-Founders looked
for best in class and market standard solutions
that can be quickly configured, personalized
and deployed for their IBM clientele. To their
dismay, they did not find many options in the
market to “instantly” solve these mobile workforce
management pains and challenges.
The available options in the market were “heavy
code” based “Technology” Platforms that puts
“IT” in a driver’s seat to deliver a high total cost
of ownership (TCO) solution with minimized or
in many cases negative return on investment
(ROI) solutions. These custom and non-market-
standard solutions are hard to scale as they
are mostly heavy code-based solutions that
need to continuously keep up with industry and
technology trends. In addition, these home-grown
“custom” products cannot scale as they cannot
grow beyond the minds of a few individuals within
an enterprise. Non-market-standard solutions
lack the ability to tap into a global community
of users to deliver a best-in-class solution for
enterprises. Innovapptive was founded to help
overcome this challenge by delivering a best-
in-class, highly configurable, codeless, and
market-standard solution for mobile workforce
management. By productizing these solutions on
a rapid mobile application development (RMAD)
platform, the Co-Founders were confident to help
enterprises “instantly” bridge the gap between
physical actions in the field and a system of
record such as SAP.
About Innovapptive:
Our Mission
“Simplify Digital Technology Consumption & Adoption ”
Our Vision
“Empower Enterprises to consume digital technology in a few clicks”
“Instant Digitization” made simple for enterprises

While Agile has disciplined the software development resulting in faster delivery cycles, DevOps moves
a step ahead to speed up the process through consistent collaboration and lot of automations. When
the entire software industry is becoming a lot faster, aggressive and high in accountability, then, can
the technical publication remain behind? Not to forget, technical publication is an integral part of R&D
and software deliverables, without which a product is not shippable.So, let us discuss the challenges
we maybe and are facing on a daily basis, before we try seeking solutions.
Challenges in the New Era of Agile and
DevOps
SAYANTI DAS
The greatest challenge a technical writer faces is to collate information, write, and publish. Most of
the time, documentation is pushed to the corner and considered as a step-child, forgetting the fact
that the product is non-compliant without its documentation! My suggestion to address this chal-
lenge is to drive documentation through agile ways. Get your documentation done while the sprint is
going on; be proactive and include yourself in all sprint plans & reviews. Once the voice is heard, the
sprint team will not only take notice, but your work is done too!
Meeting up to a Fast-Paced Environment
With DevOps into the picture, operations are automated so that the software delivery is quick, errors
are less, and collaboration is high. This approach should be applied to technical writing too! Look out
for ways where you can automate manual processes. Cut down the steps that are time consuming
and laborious. Your work should not only involve writing documents, but diversifying to the next level
of exploring other effective and innovative ways to support your users. For example, though an editor
adds value to documents, it is manually difficult to review many documents, and for so many writers.
To have faster delivery cycles, many organizations are opting for auto-editing tools such as Acrolinx
to reduce the editing burden.
Old School Methods
Knowing your users’ requirement wins half the battle. As a tech writer, do you interact with your
customers? If the answer is ‘No’; then you MUST! Otherwise, both your document and your job will
go down to trash. Look for ways to know your customers. If you don’t have a direct access to them,
then work with deployment engineers and implementation guys and understand what they want. It
can be a survey, a group discussion, an interview, Q&A, and other innovative ways to test usability
requirements of the software.
Users’ Pulse!
This is the age of digital content; right from online-help to Wiki-confluence documents, everything
is published in various innovative ways. Another very important aspect that led to revolutionize the
forms of publishing is collaboration. With more of interactions taking place between stake holders,
support engineers, and direct-clients, the need for digital content has become need of the hour. The
more digital content you can produce the more you become visible.
How is digital content different from technical documents? Well, if I am given a choice to redefine
technical writing, I would not keep lines between producing digital content and technical docs. A blog
write-up should convey the product and its features going for a GA in a nutshell, that anybody who
reads can understand and be able to connect. Meaningful content and scenario-based articles are
extremely functional in this area.
Digital Content Era
Do you follow the old school of writing? Well, its time you unlearn and accommodate yourself to va-
riety of writing that is coming to your platter. Apart from lean content (one of the DevOps drive into
technical publication) & scenario-based writing, there is a great demand for creating product slides,
white papers, standard operational process guides, and blogs. Blogs and Instructional Designing are
two important feathers in your cap if you develop the skillset. Creating and editing videos (with the
knowledge of animations) are now big in the software industry. Be prepared to face the challenge
here! What you need to rethink is, how to produce a written content in a visual medium. Be creative
and robust with your ideas, and blend it with a logical flow to instruct your users a visual display.
New Ways of Writing

With AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning), the next big change, the challenge would
be facing the enormous leap in producing interactive content! How would you produce your content
for a chatbot in an application? I would say more than traditional technical publication, we need to
delve deeper on practical Q&A, FAQs and different troubleshooting that the end-users do or can do.
However, the work does not end here. You need to analyse and understand the user’s behaviour to
feed in information that the machine learns, and thereby, create a one-stop interactive visual guid-
ance. In a nutshell, you will create the entire mechanism or the ecological flow on how a visual robot
can handle human problems when using your software.
So, what do you think? Scared or interested? While there is always a scope of fear, of the uncer-
tainties and the abilities of artificially intelligent robots; we must be assured that human beings are
capable to innovate and create. The flow of ideas is a human virtue; but for implementing the ideas
we can take help of AI and ML. So then, let’s be creative and let us fly with our wings stretched to
discover new places and higher realms that the Information Technology has to offer.
The Ro/Chat - Bot Age
About the Author
Sayanti Das has more than ten years of experience as a technical writ-
er, and currently working as Business Manager with IBM Watson-FSS,
Bangalore. Having earlier worked with MNCs like Deloitte, Ericsson
& CA, she is thankful to every company that has added value to her
skillset and help her get acquainted with many talented professionals
and highly motivated individuals.
SAYANTI DAS

I N F O R M A T I O N
M A P P I N G &
A R C H I T E C T U R E
T O P I C - B A S E D
D A T A S T R U C T U R E S
DITA
XML
S1000D
U N S T R U C T U R E D
A U T H O R I N G
T E C H D O C S
G U I D E S &
M A N U A L S
DOCS
GUIDES
MANUALS
R F X D O C U M E N T S
P R O P O S A L L I F E
C Y C L E
D O C U M E N T S
RFX
BID
PROPOSAL
B E S P O K E D A T A
S T R U C T U R E & S T Y L E
S H E E T
D E S I G N &
D E V E L O P M E N T ^
CSS
XSL
FOSI
C U S T O M I Z I E D
B U S I N E S S R U L E S
& D E C I S I O N
P O I N T S
STYLE
GUIDES
TEMPLATES
I18N
L10N
T R A N S L A T I O N A N D
L O C A L I Z A T I O N ^
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Copyright STC India
Regional Conference Committee: Ravi Adapa, Punit Shrivastava, Purushothaman Vittal
Magazine Committee: Yuvaraj Radhakrishnan (Magazine and Back Page Design), Naresh Rokkam (Front Page Design)
Editorial Board: Chandna Mitra, Anshu Joshi, Amit Kapoor, Sanjay Mall
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